Tales of the Hasty Lady
by Way of the Void
Summary: Wren Eschlan is a lone spacer, careening through the galaxy on the run from a shady past. In the simple quest to eat his fill and keep on flying he stumbles across a conspiracy that takes him from the darkest corners of the Star Wars universe and throws him into a desperate struggle that threatens to ravage the galaxy and bring all his secrets to light. Set in Legends, 22 ABY.
1. Where Regrets Send You Running

AN: A new story, for your enjoyment. An untold tale of adventure across the stars. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Chapter 1: Where Regrets Send You Running

Naruku was a dull system, with a lone habitable planet, girded with orbitals and hollowed out moons. It was something of a trade hub, but of the most mundane and forgetable sort. It had started as a mining colony, and by the time the metals had dried up, it had built up a flow of traffic that kept stopping through on their way through the rim territories. Naruku III was a cesspool city inside a stacked cluster of habitation spheres, built one by one into a clump of a megacity, and a treacherous wasteland crawling with lethal monsters beyond them. Open settlements or individual habs protected by automated defense grids and battle droids were not unheard of, but were universally considered insane.

"Gimme a Red Dwarf," he said to the Ithorian behind the bar. "A double."

It was such a typical backwater spacer dive. Equipped to serve countless species, with shady dealings in every corner and a blaster on every table. Wren slugged his drink. There was a female at the end of the bar; not human, but damn close, and well put together. He didn't meet her gaze, but the cant of her body told him she was staring straight at him. And she was on her way nearer.

"Did you know you're the only one in here who's just drinking?" she purred, gesturing about the room. She leaned her lithe frame deliberately over the wood of the bar.

"And what would you be up to, then?" he asked her. The woman gave him a sidelong glance. Wren tucked into his drink, and she draped herself over his left shoulder.

"There are a lot of things I could be doing," she said in a low voice. "What among them would bring you pleasure?"

In the corner of his grey eyes, Wren saw two Twi'lek males and a Rodian leave their booth and head for the door. The human unfolded his legs and stood from his stool. "Pay my bartab," he said to the woman, a cheeky grin on his face as he walked off. He got a few seconds of hesitation out of her, before she grabbed his arm and pulled it against her chest.

"You could pay mine," she said. "And reap other benefits."

From out the door came the sound of muffled blaster fire. Wren groaned in exaspiration. Then he elbowed the female in the sternum, shoving her away from him. With a snarl, she pulled a thin vibroblade from her top, lunging forward. The spacer stopped the lunge with two kicks; blocking the stab from out wide with a push of the bottom of his boot before lashing out sideways with the heel. The second kick landed heavy to the midsection, folding the girl over and driving her back several steps. Before she could recover her breath, Wren drew a wooden-gripped, long-barreled blaster from his thigh holster and fired two stun pulses into her. She crumpled without a sound.

"Lady, I'd buy this whole place just to stop your prattle," he muttered, before dashing for the door. At the last moment, Wren tipped himself over and tumbled back out of the doorway, before the door was burned through by a hail of blaster bolts. He hopped back on the chase once the barrage was done, loading a slender grey-tipped slug from a belt pouch into his second underslung barrel. Outside the cantina, the three from the booth were scrambling into a landspeeder. Wren took one handed aim and fired the bottom barrel, and the round pentrated through the craft's body. Within it exploded, gutting the repulsorlifts and killing the vehicle. The three began to crawl clear, but there were trigger pullers to Wren's left and right as he came through the cantina door, blasters drawn. They'd exchanged fire with the three as they escaped; one of their number had already fallen further down the street to the shots Wren had heard earlier.

Wren fired first, a thick green particle bolt taking the first in the back of the head and bowling him over. The second aimed to Wren, but the spacer stepped in close, blocking the gunman's move to aim with a right forearm and landing a straight left to the body, in one movement. Then, Wren turned his left fist upward, popping the chin up so he could strike with his right hand, hammering the grip of his blaster pistol into the side of the gunman's face. The last interloper fell in a heap, turning Wren's attention back to the three from the cantina. They raised blasters. A fusillade of green bolts cut them down.

"Ahhgh!" The Rodian howled, his blaster arm cooked. The other two moved no more. They just smouldered. Wren closed in, step by step.

"You really slagged this one, Cohju," he said with a grimace. "I'd have never taken this job a week ago. I could care less who Bruga the Hutt wants to flay." There was no response, just an accusing stare. "Don't look at me like that. You brought this on your self when you stole a Star Galleon filled with medical supplies, doomed the research station it was headed towards, and then used it to vape a private passenger craft for fun."

"Don't give me up to Bruga," Cohju gasped. "Just blast me here."

Wren crounched, wrenching Cohju's good arm around behind his back and yanking him up by it. "No such luck," he hissed in the Rodian's ear. "And don't think I'm nice enough to hand you over to the New Republic, so you can get a cot, holonet, and three round portions of whatever the fek your species likes to eat, for the rest of your life." The pained look on Cohju's face turned to dread. Wren grinned wide. "You're going to Bastion. Try not to look too thrilled."

Wren lead his catch to the star port; there, Naruku Trade Authority would hold him till the Empire came to shuttle the lowlife off to less-than-comfortable full incarceration, for a small cut of the bounty. "Buck up, old buddy," he said to his one time friend. "They won't work you to death, it's 22 ABY, not 2 ABY. Gilad Pellaeon isn't exactly Palpatine. You'll have food, blankets, might even get a microfresher."

The bounty hunter took his time leaving the spaceport, unsure where he should proceed. "Time is it?" he asked himself, consulting his chronometer. "21st out of 26 hours?" He could return to his ship, but there were still 5 hours of nightlife to consider. Especially since his balance was 4000 credits larger.

The grumble in his stomach decided for him. "Grub'" he said aloud. "Definitely grub."

Wren had developed a knack for tracking down the only decent food on backwater dirtballs. He strode through the streets, a sack of nerfburgers hanging from one hand. "Hah, nightlife. Funny," he said to himself, navigating through to the star port, high on the wall of the hab cluster where the hangars ringed the outside of the structure. "Wrenspeak for 'drink yourself silly'." He sent his starship a ramp-down signal, which it obeyed immediately. It was a Corellian model, 52 meters long, with three drives and a classic linear blockade runner profile.

 _"Su'Cuy_! This your ship?" Wren turned to see.

"I'm on the ramp, so yeah, it's mine," he said to the armored form. He almost mistook the white armor trimmed red for a stormtrooper, but if you stayed in the rough spots of the galaxy, you learned to spot genuine Mandalorian kit, and to stear clear. "You've gotta be the shortest Mando I've ever seen."

 _"Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya,"_ the mercenary said.

Wren waved his hands dismissively, not understanding a word. "What do you want?" he asked, already at the end of his patience.

"I need transport. To Coruscant."

The implications passed through Wren's head. A run to Coruscant meant big money. But it also meant that whoever this was, Wren was stuck with him for quite a bit of time. "A runt like you wouldn't take up much space," the pilot jabbed. "And the YZ-775 is a pretty roomy model. Fast too, and the Hasty Lady here is faster than most of her like. We can get you to the core at .75 through hyperspace, but that's a long trek out of my way. Cost will be extra."

"My employer will cover any expense. Will 15,000 credits reserve your services until we arrive?"

Wren was about to haggle higher when he heard shouts coming from down the corridor. Cursing, the Mando posted outside the doorway. "This conversation isn't over," Wren said, dashing up the ramp.

" _Iviin'yc_ , spacer!" The Mandalorian called at Wren's back. "Your rust bucket is worthless if you are!" The armored warrior shouldered a modified DC-15A blaster rifle, deploying a keen bayonet. A pilot light on the right wrist of the armor clicked on, a thin blue torch. Then a gang of gunmen in ramshackle plastoid armor came round the corner, and the Mando hosed them down in a spray of burning fuel. What followed was a storm of violent bayonet drill, as the 5'4" stack of armor and weapons stabbed, cut, and bludgeoned through the still-burning attackers.

In the conical cockpit, Wren inched his hand back from the weapons control. "Damn," he muttered, starting an heavily truncated launch procedure. The Mando sprinted for the Hasty Lady's ramp, turning to fire a volley of blue plasma as more armored gunmen spilled into their landing pit. They toted T-21 repeaters and CR-1 blaster cannons.

"If you let them hit me with that, I'm gonna reset all your holonet preferences," said a sly female voice. Wren responded by hitting the 'ramp up' switch.

"Gimme the autoblasters on eye-tracking," he ordered. The men on the ground began setting up a Merr-Sonn Mark II.

"Either leave or shoot, flyboy!" called the Mando from the ramp. He fired his DC again, sending the enemy scrambling, before pulling a cryoban grenade. "Both, preferably." He hucked the cryogenic weapon, before sprinting to the cockpit as the ramp closed shut. The Mando posted on the back of the copilot chair, stowing his DC's bayonet.

Wren fixed his eyes on the ambling men; at the cheek positions on each side of the cockpit, an array of four dual autoblaster turrets deployed from beneath concealing armor plates, and adjusted to his point of vision. He pressed the button on his left armrest console, and the eight barrels blanketed the entryway in hundreds of bursting red bolts, the discharges melding together into a single splitting screech. Wren walked his vision left and right, mowing through the assembling heavy weapons and detonating the Merr-Sonn turreted gun. _"Kandosii,"_ the merc breathed through his voice filter. Wren didn't understand, but smirked anyways.

"Yeah," he said, hitting the throttle and sending power to the drives. They turned and shifted out of the hanger before tearing away for the ever higher reaches of the atmosphere. "Now then. First, SENA, an apology would be nice, considering that your hardware is untouched as usual."

"Granted," came the same female voice from before.

"Thank you kindly. Moving on, Mando. My rate to Coruscant from these parts is normally 25k per head. But seeing that you've got some very heavily armed critics, that rate is gonna climb to 50k, up front, plus thrice that on completion." Wren smirked more.

"Two things," the armored passenger responded. "One, where's that lady?"

"SENA is short for Self Expanding Neural Architecture. She's my co-pilot, physically located in the off-limits droid bay, and she helps me run this eight man ship on my own. She's tapped into pretty much everything on the Hasty Lady. Anything else?"

"Your rate is exorbitant. If I knew you were gonna be a _besom_ , I would have looked for a different ship."

Wren laughed. "Buddy, truth is that there isn't another ship in the Naruku system that can get you to Coruscant in one piece. This isn't my first bantha ride, you're getting chased by people with blaster cannons for a good reason, and I'm gonna get paid proper for getting you through it. Autoblasters is just the beginning of this bag of tricks. Your employer will get his money's worth.".

Something resembling a scoff issued from the voice filter. "We'll see," the Mando said. _"Verd ori'shya beskar'gam."_

"A warrior is more than his armor," SENA offered.

"Apt," Wren responded with a chuckle. "But you've got the best pilot that frequents these parts. The Hasty Lady has the muscle, brains, and firepower to get you to the Core alive. But if you like, I can drop you off on that dirtball so you can find a cruddier ship with a scruffier, laserbrained pilot, who can help you test that pretty kit's void resistance." The Mando tilted his helmet, but said nothing. "Your room is to the left out of the cockpit corridor. Mine is to the right; also, obviously, off limits. Food prep is in the lounge at the center of the crew deck, if your people need things like that." Then an alarm sounded, followed by a soft red light on Wren's console. "SENA?"

"Three upgunned Action VI transports, and sixteen X-ceptors, all on intercept vectors off a minor orbital crossing our flight path," came the even reply. "Insulting, really."

"Oh come on, it'll be a nice light show. Give me forward shields and the autoblasters, and get to work with the AG-2Gs."

" _Gedet'ye_ , tell me you're kidding! I'm paying you to get my _shebs_ out of trouble, not into it!" the Mando complained, as the Hasty Lady came about and angled up, reaching for a higher orbit as the autoblaster turrets revealed themselves from under their armored panels. Streaks of red reached out into the dark from the Lady's waist guns, streaking off till they burst apart on something solid or lost cohesion thousand of kilometers away. Bolts of green fired from the wing cannons of salvaged TIE Interceptors bound to X-wing bodies, but the Correlian transport pitched about on her maneuvering jets, and the long range shots flew wide or pounded all too feeble against the Hasty Lady's shields. The uglies had less luck; even at such extended ranges, SENA's gunnery yielded blossoming fireballs as the powerful quad guns lead the ramshackle fighters and tore through them. Wren too struck out against the approaching fighter screen, pointing the nose once, twice, and a third time to slay X-ceptors with the rapid fire cheek cannons. They were speedy fighters, with plenty of power for weapons and thrust but very poor handling; thanks to the conflict between X-wing control systems and drives mated to the solar power and maneuvering thrusters of a TIE/in, getting properly responsive controls out of X-ceptors was impossible. Between Wren and SENA, the fighter screen fell apart rapidly.

"Your skepticism is duly noted," Wren beamed. "But these clowns are gonna have to do a lot better than this if they wanna vape my humble abode."

"Wren, those Actions are picking up missile locks and launching proton weapons," SENA reported. "Nine torpedoes total."

"That's more like it. You're best with the composite beams, they're all yours."

The Hasty Lady wore four bulges amidship, two ventral and two dorsal. Each contained an armored popup turret for a composite beam laser, an incredibly destructive short range blaster weapon similar in mechanism to the superlaser of the Death Stars of old. These weapons, though they dissipated quickly, were furiously intense and exceedingly accurate, so SENA used them as a point defense system. The blistering red beams detonated the proton torpedoes in rapid succession as they closed in on the Lady. The approaching ships launched volleys of turbolaser fire, which the Lady returned with her dorsal and ventral dual guns. The muffled thumps of impacts against the shields drowned out the sound of Wren's return fire.

"You're not gonna outgun those big bastards, just cut and run!" By now the Mando was in a panic, wincing at every slash of red-orange color that the Action VIs sent their way. Wren was rather enjoying it.

"But our jump point is that way," he cheekily insisted. "We've gotta go through, or we'll have to jump again. It'll be a waste of fuel."

"I'm about to waste blaster bolts in your sorry _shebs_ if you don't-"

Wren eased the inertial dampers back and took a particularly hard bank, pitching the armored mercenary back into one of the navigator chairs. "Sit down, damn it," he ordered, pouring on the throttle. He spun a thumbwheel on his flight stick for weapon selection; ahead of and between the autoblasters, armored panels revealed two longbarreled chin cannons. He fired two short bursts with these weapons. The first volley of solid shells sheathed in red plasma caught the rightmost transport. The shields flared but found no purchase, and all six struck the nose of the converted freighter. Each impact issued a furious spherical detonation, reducing the front end of the pirate ship to a glowing molten wreck. Wren angled left for his second burst. Caught in the waist by another grouping of six, the power source detonated, and broke the ship in two.

 _"Meg shabla..."_ the Mandalorian groaned. _"Har'chaak! Gar atin or'dinii!"_

 _"K'uur!"_ SENA shouted back. Wren cackled, spinning the selector wheel again. Two torpedoes trailing blue exhaust launched from tubes at the root of the cockpit and the main hull, slamming into the last vessel's rear end as it turned to run. Bursts of wayward lightning coursed across its hull, killing the drives and the last smatterings of turbolaser fire.

"Oogaly boogaly!" the pilot shouted back at them. Then he reached for his comm controls. "SENA, sweep for New Republic transponder signals, the higher tonnage the better."

"Hmm... Ok, here we go. The Mark I Assault Frigate Voidwatcher, a five hour jump away."

"Assault frigate Voidwatcher, this is the medium transport Hasty Lady. We just had a bit of a scrape with some piracy, and there's a disabled Action VI transport here ripe for your taking. Sending you a bearing with our sensor data of the fight now. Be careful on your approach, there's plenty of dead wrecks too."

 _"Hasty Lady, remain on station pending our investigation of your incident, over."_

Wren let out a barking laugh as he powered down the weapons, stowing the autoblasters, mass drivers, and composite beams beneath their hull panels. The four conventional turrets returned to neutral facings. "That's not happening," he said with a shake of his head. The Lady jumped, bounding into hyperspace. Wren stood from his chair, stretching his arms up behind his head. "I'm going to bed. Feel free to make yourself at home, but please keep in mind, SENA will be watching you for me."

The pilot moved down the hallway, past the ramp and into the crew deck. He took the right, entering his bedroom and locking the door behind him. He set his environmental control to refresh, and rolled up a cigarra. The marcan helped keep the dreams at bay, but in this sleep the calming herb would provide no solace. He stripped, ran a hand through his brown hair, dimmed the lights, and soon drifted off to sleep.


	2. Trust Issues

Chapter 2: Trust Issues

"Hmmm?"

"Eschlan!" The smell of his air filter filled Wren's nose. "Trooper Eschlan, move it! Mount up!"

Wren started awake, and before he came to his senses he was thrust into a dark durasteel coffin. There he lay in terror, until his reactor ignited. The suit came to life, spilling a glowing heads up display across his face. He felt a jolt as he was lowered, and remembered where he was; aboard the Praetor-II battlecruiser Spitefather, being loaded into an assault shuttle. It was 11ABY.

"Listen up," came platoon lead over the comms. "Target asset is a prototype droid brain, housed in a research station the Rebels captured from us, in orbit of the second moon of Velabri. Spitefather and task force will clear the path, we'll extract the asset, exfiltrate, and then blow the whole station. This action order came straight from the Emperor on Byss; the New Order needs us to come through with this."

Wren fixed his eyes to the tactical planner, the empty field at the bottom left corner of the HUD with a blue triangle, the Spitefather, in its middle. He felt the soft jolt of realspace translation, and watched the fleet spill across his planner. Six Star Destroyers flanked the Spitefather; four Imperial-IIs and two hangarless, uparmored Tector-class vessels. Heading them was an Allegiance-class battlecruiser, itself very much an overgrown ISD. This group of heavy vessels clustered around the Spitefather as the picket screens materialized around them, a smattering of Ton Falk escort carriers, Lancer-class frigates, and Vindicator heavy cruisers. Wren dialed up his scanner range to include the station, already a nest of activity as Rebel warships mustered to respond to the approching Imperial fleet, which rapidly became a seething hive of TIE fighters.

Capital vessels bearing the crimson starbird charged ahead; sleek Correlian gunboats, skeletal frigates, and the lumpen forms of Mon Calamari heavy warships, spewing their own squadrons. Swooping Rebel fighters rode out ahead like birds of prey to challenge the clouds of droning TIEs. Slashes of dueling colors cut through the inky void as the fighter screens thrashed against each other and the pickets began exchanging volleys of heavier weaponry.

Wren could hear the discharge of Spitefather's guns through the hull of the assault shuttle and his own void armor. One by one, smaller vessels began to fall off the board on both sides. For the beleaguered New Republic, each loss was devastating so late into the Emperor's return. For the Empire, each vessel was irrelevant. The only assets that truly mattered were the assault shuttle, it's team, and their target. Kilometer by kilometer the Imperial fleet battered its way through the Republic defenses, leaving drifting, burning wrecks in their wake, clouds of spilled gasses, fields spinning hull plates and frozen, lifeless bodies. Spitefather's thrusters flared higher, and his cadre of capital vessels followed, pounding away mercilessly with their heavy armaments. The rebels pressed on. One of the Mon Cal vessels, a newer MC90 model, loosed a volley of massive ship-to-ship proton torpedoes alongside its thick red turbolaser fire. Assorted fighter squadrons added their own projectiles, and one of the Tector-class star destroyers fell, spewing thick explosions out of its drive compartment and shield generators. The Allegiance battlecruiser shifted to fill the hole in the attacking line, blasting away with its extended broadside batteries and spherical dorsal and ridge turrets.

The rebel battle line was now fully arranged; the MC90, three blunt and wide arrowheaded MC80Bs, and four older MC80s, actual militarized passenger liners. A meager squadron of several gunships and two remaining frigates hung about the frontal arc, struggling to hold back the whirling clouds of TIE fighters.

A new alarm tickled his ear, a steady repeating group of three tones. The assault shuttle fired up its drives, ready to power out of the hangar as Spitefather burned drives towards the spindly, multi-armed urchin of the research station, Kuati and Mon Cal ships destroying each other on all sides. "Ninety seconds to voidwalk!" shouted the platoon leader.

It seemed to last forever. The electronic thump of energy weapons leaving the shuttle's turrets and impacting against its shields. The assault shuttle vibrated from the discharge, and Wren fought down his fear; it was a product of the vessel's small size, but its stout shields were designed to endure for the sake of its precious cargo. None of it could hide the blood rushing through his head within the confines of his void assault armor. Then, the dreaded three tone, three screeches, and then the only thing he could hear was his own body, and his comrades over the comms. Through his HUD the research station loomed; the assault shuttle, secured tightly with its power harpoon, traded volleys of fire with the station's defensive guns. Already those guns were directing thick columns of green energy at the ambling cloud of Spacetroopers.

"Eschlan!" It was Gayn Fiers, one of his squadmates back at the academy on Carida. A tough, well-fed youth from Corellia, Gayn and Wren had little in common but had overcome much together. "Increase your dispersion, you're too close. We'll both show up on sens-"

He was gone in an instant; a turbolaser bolt consumed him entirely. In one moment he was there, at Wren's port side high. Then the bolt washed out Wren's visual feed with an emerald flash. By the time he could see again, there was nothing left but motes of green, charged particles of tibana gas torn from the energy blast by its collision. Wren watched the fairy lights fade, the only remains of his friend.

The platoon touched down on the outer hull of the research station, Wren and his comrades igniting their cutting lasers. Directing the tool against the durasteel, they breached the vessel's body inch by inch. With every moment Trooper Eschlan felt his pulse pound harder, till he felt like he was going to burst his heart.

Then came the moment of action; the cuts had been made, and with a word, the fight would be on. The Rebels had their chance; now, in the bowels of the station, the Spacetroopers would have the crushing advantage of their heavy armors to wield against the softer infantry within. Platoon lead trained his blaster cannon and fired, blasting the selected breach to slag. They surged forward on their thrusters, cutting down a room of spacesuited troops. Having claimed the airlock, they began a crushing march through the station; each room would be breached and cleared. In each room, a volley of grenades would crush resistance before blaster cannons cut down the survivors. Heavy weapons they encountered were given the dubious honor of a wrist-launched proton rocket. For hours Wren gleefully partook in grim vengence in Gayn's name, until at last they found the laboratory housing the objective. But as they began the back to their assault shuttle, the noises began. Distant at first, like grinding gears a ways off. But they grew in strength, nearer and nearer till the din was unbearable.

* * *

"Huuugh!" Wren, shuddering and gasping, bolted up to a seated position. Scrambling out of his bed he groped desperately at his nightstand, seizing a slender ELG-3A blaster pistol from a holster between the stand and the wall. His chest heaving, Wren slumped against the wall, gripping the blaster tight. He stayed there for what felt like hours, waiting for his adrenaline to burn out, until finally he could force himself to stop shaking. He wearily slipped the blaster back into its holster, flopping back onto the bed for another half hour before hitting the fresher.

Wren ambled out of the fresher, slipping into a pair of his uniform pants and a grey wifebeater. He rolled up a cigarra of marcan herb, lighting it as the spacer moved from his bedroom fore to the cockpit. "SENA?"

"All steady, nothing new here," came the response. Wren nodded sleepily, staring out into hyperspace for a moment before turning about and heading into tbe lounge to eat breakfast.

The spacer made a beeline for the kitchen. From the couches to the left, he heard the Mando call out, _"Briikase tuur."_

"Morning," he mumbled, not even bothering to look as he went immedilately for the caf pot, pouring himself a tall mug. He stood there for a moment, alternating between his marcan and caf, a standard start to his day. "SENA, double the atmospheric refresh rate," he said; last thing he wanted was for his unplanned passenger to complain about him smoking on his own ship.

"Don't bother, I'm fond of a Shento every now and then," came the call from the den. _"Nau'ur!"_

Wren had collected himself to the point he realized that the Mando wasn't speaking through a voice filter, and moved to hang in the doorway, so as to better berate. "You know I'm not sure this has really struck you yet, but I really don't speak..."

Wren tried his very best, but he couldn't quite keep his mouth shut. The Mando was a she. A gorgeous she. She had a cold weather morphology, fiery haired and fair skinned with a dusting of freckles about her face and shoulders. Her eyes were a soft mossy green, and she was dressed much like he was; grey uniform pants, black tanktop, lush copper braid. Her figure was something Wren didn't allow himself to analyze; oogling a Mandalorian woman at first meeting was a mistake he wasn't quite dumb enough to make. "You seem to be speaking plenty," she said, smirking as she sipped at a mug.

"I mean... I mean, I meant..." Wren groaned, and took another drag of his cigarra. "Just forget it. What's your name, anyhow?"

"Shana Tor'kad," she said. "And you?"

"Wren Eschlan." He sipped his caf, regaining his composure mouthful by mouthful.

"Well, Wren, it's a remarkable ship you've got, if a touch dusty. Makes the Millenium Falcon seem like a youth shuttle."

Wren snorted. "I wouldn't go that far. I've seen the Falcon, and its a good deal faster than my Lady. Despite the name, we're built for firepower and staying power, and then speed." He turned towards the wall, where he knew the room's microcam was located. "SENA, would you have one of the astromechs tidy up a bit?"

"Well color me impressed, captain. Do you mind if I ask about our route?"

"Mon Gazza is next," Wren said, heading back into the kitchen but leaving the door open. "We're going to pick up a load of legitimate cargo, both as a cover to shift attention away from our charter, and because I like money. We may also pick up an associate of mine, an Abbysian named Hakyo. He's a good shot, pretty much unstoppable in a brawl, and can take blaster bolts with a moderate amount of discomfort; he'll come in handy, trust me."

"All I've ever heard of Mon Gazza is that it's a _bines osik_ , a dung heap." Wren couldn't help but find the crestfallen look on her face adorable.

 _"Force, you really found one,"_ he thought. "If it's too dirty, you can always stay on the ship."

Shana snorted. "Fat chance. I can't let you go and haggle with a brute like that without some backup," she said, slapping her bicep.

Wren didn't know what to say to that bit. _"Beautiful. But trusting. Too trusting for her own good."_ The former Spacetrooper was a shady type and knew it; what kind of hardass was this bombshell that she didn't have the sense to see that?

"I appreciate the sentiment," he said, hiding his internal considerations. It wouldn't do to go ruining whatever good graces he may have with this strange creature that had practically stumbled out of empty space and into his life. "We're definitely gonna have to go strapped up. Get your kit ready."

Wren absconded, picking his way back to the cockpit with the plate of Nerf sausage, fried Hubba root, and Therix eggs over easy that he'd made for himself. Hakyo, as much as he'd assist in keeping the paying passenger safe, also served as an insurance plan in case Shana's good graces moved elsewhere.

Trust was not something Wren had in great supply.


	3. To Open Tables

AN:

Hello y'all. This new project marches onward as we pick up a new party member and get a better feel for the current ones. I need to say I'm having a wonderful time with Shana's Mando'a lines. Tricky, but such fun. If you're itching for translations I'm pulling this all off of the Mando'a Wookiepedia page. In other news, my prototypical Final Fastasy VII piece has been removed for total overhaul; it doesn't reflect my current feelings on the work or a fully accurate view of the characters, so for now it had to go. Enjoy, and be sure to stay tuned!

Chapter 3: To Open Tables

Mon Gazza, the lesser known podracing dustball, was a touch aside from what Shana had expected, and not for the better. She had been to Tatooine and saw there how evils like slavery and scarcity ravaged lives, but starving and homeless seemed to be everywhere here, on every corner. The fourth time she dipped into her wallet, Wren caught her by the hand, shaking his head. "We gave to them three corners ago," he said, throwing the raggedy dressed lady a look that sent her scurrying. "If you're not careful, groups will tail you so that they can hit you with each member one at a time and milk you for cash over the whole day." Naturally it struck Shana as intensely dishonest, but looking at the state of these streets, she couldn't bring herself to anger. She took refuge in her _buy'ce ka'rta_ , her 'helmet-soul'; the tougher version of yourself brought about by wearing proper _beskar'gam_. It was a nuanced term, including everything from the way your boots sounded on wooden floors, to having an abundance of ammunition and secondary weapons, to the incredible multI-threat protective capabilities of Mandalorian Iron, to the self-confidence gained from the impenetrable sab'aac face of the T-shaped visor.

"Who would ceate such a _dar'yaim_?" she questioned. "Who would come here? And who would stay?"

Wren sank further into the look of disgust "Well it was spice at first. Any planet capable of supporting Energy Spiders is gonna become a scumhole if the spice trade gets wind." Shana flared her nose in contempt. "The New Republic naturally outlawed it, but spice trade is the lifeblood of crime; they haven't left, they've just gone underground. It's easily the most brutal life on the planet. Makes Kessel look like spring in Theed."

"Filthy stuff," she hissed, and Wren nodded in agreement.

"Then came the pod races," he continued. "Obviously a brutal lifestyle in its own right, but it has its perks. Mon Gazza is even dryer than Tatooine; no moisture to farm, so every last sip of drinking water is brought in from off planet or collected and purified, and then supplemented with the required nutrients for life. The Pod Racing Guild is the only faction on the planet that can afford a diet of 100% actual food for even it's entry-level members. They also basically control the tourist industry; Mon Gazza is actually something of a nexus of cuisine, but it's reserved by law for offworlders, PRG employees, and administrators of the other factions. Anyone without a tourist visa or PRG food card couldn't buy a single mouthful of food no matter how many credits they had."

"Is any business on this planet not steeped in death and dishonesty?" Shana seriously doubted she'd have any sort of appetite no matter what was on her plate. Not in a place like this.

Wren shook his head. "The closest thing to it is the rustmining. Mon Gazza's red coloration comes from ferric compounds in the sand, compounds that can be processed into precursor metals used in making durasteel. They brave rust storms that will eat you alive just like any other sandstorm, but if you survive it, you're in for a longer, more painful septic death. Dunestalkers will blind you with acid, dive into your chest, and lay a clutch of eggs around your heart, and the hellion worms will leap up out of the sand and cut you in half in the blink of an eye, but it's the only way for a Mon Gazzan to get a food card without a hereditary administrative position or getting involved in a highly insular and violent pod racing community."

"How do all these homeless fit in?" she questioned, dreading the response.

"Most of them are between jobs," the spacer explained. "The lifers are either disabled, usually from injuries sustained on a job, or have been blacklisted." Wren cast a glance over to his alluring yet imposing passenger. "The invalid get taken care of by their social groups and local businesses. You get blacklisted if the High Administrator's forces catch you helping a blacklister, or otherwise running afoul one of the factions; they don't last long."

Shana stopped herself from sighing, casting another look around. "Where are we going to find this cyclops, then?"

"Hakyo spends his time near the racetrack, in the parade district. He's a professional hooligan, from what I hear. They don't actually let him into the stadiums anymore."

That earned a dark chuckle from the Mando. "Can't imagine why," she joked.

"Yeah, a pissed off seven and a half foot regenerating ex-tribal savage is rarely good for your concessions numbers. The bars in the parade district don't have that luxury, refusing to serve him would mean losing potentially thousands of customers." Wren panned his head around for a moment, before locking on. "Follow, but not too close," he said.

The captain changed directions, falling in behind a Zabrak and grabbing him by the coat. The horn-headed man spun around swinging, but pulled short, holding his hands up. "Force, Eschlan! Don't do nothing to me!"

Shana watched his face, and his scowl didn't speak of the violence the Zabrak was fearing. "I'm not here for the old nerf, Graul." Wren let Graul step back, dusting him off.

"O-oh!" Graul looked as though a blaster had been taken from his head. "Water under the bridge then?"

The corner of Wren's mouth twitched. "Don't count on it. Just tell me where Hakyo hangs out these days and I won't lump you."

The blaster-to-my-head look came right back. "Duraka's been on a losing streak, and Splinqui crashed and got shredded by hellions just last week. Hakyo isn't really approachable these days..."

Wren sighed, casting his gaze up in exhaspiration, before popping Graul in the throat with the edge of his hand. "Let me worry about that," he said, as the Zabrak gasped and coughed.

"He's in Stalker's Supper," Graul ground out. "But for real, watch yourself. He's got a new blaster and he's not shy of the trigger."

Wren ambled over to where Shana was waiting. "What else is new?" he muttered. "Catch all that, red?"

The Mando woman nodded once, tapping the side of her helmet. "Stalker's Supper, new blaster, bad mood."

"Knowing Hakyo, it's something excessive. Which is part of why we came strapped up."

Shana had her DC-15A slung at her front at low ready. Holstered at her thigh was a DC-15S, cut down shorter with the folding stock removed. Hanging from the small of her back was a short two-foot saber with a thick d-shaped guard. When Wren had questioned it back on the Lady, she had responded with a winning grin. "It's not in the Resol'nare, but every proper Mando'ad can at least play with the _beskad_. My papa is a swordmaster, _alor'kad_ in our language. One of the best, actually."

Wren smirked. _"My papa is a swordmaster. Get off planet."_ He wore his handsomely blued and engraved S-5, with a single square holographic sight on its top and the standard projectile launcher, on his thigh. Under each arm was an ELG-3A, and behind his back was a Q2 holdout blaster. Wren's belt was a medley of power packs and lose rounds for use in the S-5's underbarrel launcher.

Shana had taken her turn to question his choices, while he slipped on his brown bantha leather jacket. "Spent a lot of time on Naboo?" She had asked, hefting one of his ELG-3As.

"More or less," Wren said. His tone was clipped, and Shana couldn't read anything from it. "But I also just appreciate the hardware. The S-5 is more than just a great heavy pistol. The underslung slugthrower can do anything you can cook up a round for."

"Pretty," she commented. "Wood grips and nice finishes are always going to be stylish. Maybe a little too stylish for every locale?"

Wren took the slender pistol from Shana's hands, slipping it into a holster under his jacket. "I have other kit for the rougher stuff," he insisted. "We're not heading out into the wastes; parade district can be rough, but not too bad as long as you don't get caught in a post-race riot."

Wren displayed a tendency to slip through crowds with little effort, identifying passage through the bustling street that didn't step on any toes or bump any shoulders. Shana followed a ways behind, the crowd giving her a wide berth at the sight of her modified GAR surplus and Mando kit. "So why the getup?" He questioned her, when traffic crowded them together.

"What getup?" she responded.

"The white plate, the red trim, the DCs?" he continued.

Shana slapped the cheek of her helmet in exasperation. "Us _Mando'ade_ , we color our armor for symbolic meaning. Red honors parents and teachers."

"And white?"

Shana's cheeks flushed as she stared off into space through her inscrutable faceplate. "It represents a Mandalorian concept, _ara'nov solus aruetii bal hut'uun_ ; defending lone strangers and cowards. A pledge to help others who can't help themselves, because it's right and you can. Using your fighting skills for justice as well as profit."

"I guess nobody told the Stormtrooper Corps," Wren thought with a frown, feeling a creeping chill of sadness in the cast of her gaze and the set of her shoulders. "Seeing this place must kill you," he said softly.

Shana shrugged. "My people are nomadic warriors; mercenaries, bounty hunters, assassins, body guards. You get used to it quick, being dedicated to altruism in a lifestyle like ours. Can't help everyone."

Wren nodded his head. They rounded a corner, and the architechture shifted visibly, with streets devoid of the homeless and colorful banners flying over every one of the many bars and resturaunts. The district was just beginning to fill in anticipation of the afternoon and evening races. Wren drew a beeline for one particular bar. They stepped inside, and Shana was immediately hit by the scent of liquor and hot food, even through her helmet filters. A uniformed Dug at the door took one look at Wren and pointed to the back left corner of the wide room.

Abyssians were always an imposing sight, but Hakyo was more imposing than most, a hulking wall of muscle that stood seven feet and change. He wore a huge pair of simple trousers, but for his savage people, such garb was highly formal. On Abyss it would be simply outlandish, the tribes that wore anything sported pelts and loincloths. At the belt was a small circular droid, a seemingly generic translator model with a harsh cycloptic face not unlike its master's and a dull gunmetal finish; another piece of an ensemble that would never fit in on this being's home world. There was the blaster, lying on the table next to a cup of what looked and smelled like animal blood; it was a cut down N'gant-Zarvel 9118, a short and powerful heavy carbine made shorter by the removal of its stock.

"Hakyo!" Wren called over the pub's bustle. "Old friend!"

The brute turned, his eye blinking slowly. and roared, huge arms out wide. Shana grasped her DC, but Wren stepped into her line of fire. With a laugh, Wren proceeded to unload a vicious flurry of strikes on Hakyo's bare abdomen. The sound of the impact of Wren's limbs against the Abyssin's body managed to cut through the noise filling the joint. Wren continued long as he could, but eventually his strikes began to slow, and he gave up. Hakyo roared again, and those in the place who were PRG members and in on the joke roared as well, with laughter and toasts.

" _Kandosii_ ," Shana thought to herself. "He's good. Damn good." She'd seen plenty of superb brawlers in her day, but Wren moved with all the speed, power, and stamina of a world-class pit fighter. The Abyssin brushed his belly with one huge clawed fist, completely unharmed thanks to his dense bones and thick hide. Wren turned back to her, a grin on his face.

"It's cool, come on and eat," he said. Seats were pulled up to the table and they were sat with an extensive menu. Shana cast Wren a look as he ordered without hesitation. Eventually the Dug water's eyes fell on her, and eventually the whole table joined. She relented when Wren gave her a subtle nod, pulling off her helmet and setting it on the table.

"Not really hungry," she said sheepishly. Wren stifled a chuckle.

"Give us a second," he said to the waiter, grabbing Shana by the shoulder plate and tugging her into whispering range. "I thought I mentioned, all those homeless get handouts from the more beneficent PRG factions, that's how they get their aqua-nutria." He pointed to her menu, continuing; "That's the second figure there. Cost in credits, and how many bottles of aqua-nutria they hand out from the profits."

Shana relented, her face scrunched with a mix of emotions, none of them pleasent. She did order herself a plate of seared fish and veg, however. Hakyo began a grumbling tirade, setting his translator droid on the table so it could be heard. "Friends," it said, speaking as though it were Hakyo, not an intermediary. "One of our old guard, who has spent much time away, has returned to our fold at the perfect moment."

The easy, relaxed grin on Wren's face shifted to confusion. "Perfect? I'd heard Splinqui had..."

Wren knew the look that Hakyo had adopted. The brute motioned to another at the table, who hit a button on their wall panel. A sliding screen deployed, sealing their booth off from the rest of the resturaunt. Grim faces were sported all around. "Yes," Hakyo continued. "Splinqui the Charitable is dead. By all appearances but one, an accident."

"All but one?" Shana inserted. The Abyssin cast his lone eye on the Mando, studying her intently.

"You travel with a female of your kin, Brother Eschlan. You never told me you'd mated again," the Cyclops said through his translator.

"...Excuse me?" Shana's hand inched towards her _beskad_ , but Wren held her back with a grip on her elbow that kept the blade in its sheath. Hakyo issued a rumbling sound that the droid didn't translate , and after a few moments Shana realized it was a humor vocalization.

"Yes, all but one," their host continued. "Splinqui crashed in the wastes, a half kilometer from the Greater Gorothra Hive, largest and oldest documented Hellion community on Mon Gazza. Naturally, he died, one of thousands of racers claimed by that hive. Like I said, it was a near perfect accident."

Wren frowned, massaging the bridge of his nose. Hakyo was, as Abyssin's went, extremely eccentric. Unlike most of his kind who found their way into the space lanes, Hakyo didn't leave to become an enforcer in spacer communities. He was kicked out of his birth tribe on Abyss for his intolerable disregard for the traditional Abyssin way of life. "The point, Hakyo."

The cyclops chuckled again. Wren knew it as a grim sound. "The High Administrator declared the site of the crash to be a monument, and has already hired a mercenary force to level the hive so construction could begin. This makes the crash site inaccessible, but we managed to bribe our ways into some of the fragments of the wreckage." Hakyo straightened to his full height. "They were covered in Baradium residue."

"Then he was murdered," Shana said. Those at the table nodded in agreement.

"Splinqui was integral to the Open Table Movement, as he called it," Wren explained. "Mon Gazza is prosperous enough to leave the Food Laws behind, and has been for a decade and a half. The only reason these laws haven't been revoked is the say so of the High Administrator. His family owns the original charter granted by the Hutts to develop Mon Gazza. As a champion racer, Splinqui was one of the few able to go to bat publicly against the food laws without fear of retribution. Now that he's dead, the Open Table Movement will crumble."

Hakyo blinked once. "Indeed. Unless we can link Splinqui's murder to the High Administrator, the needless hunger of this planet's poor will continue, maybe for many decades more."

Wren scowled. This was far more than he'd bargained for in coming back to Mon Gazza; getting involved in this would waste precious time and possibly raise all kinds of unwanted attention. He was about to voice this concern when he felt a tug at his sleeve. He turned bad was instantly fixed by a pair of forest green eyes. There was a look of desperate need on her face; it was the most winning pout he'd seen in quite a long time. "Please, Wren," she said softly, but with passion he couldn't ignore. "These people need us."

Cursing himself the whole time, Wren couldn't bring himself to say no. "It is decided," Hakyo said, raising his mug of animal fluids. "To open tables!"


	4. All That Matters

AN: Hey there ladies and germs. I don't know how many of you are reading this, but that's the life I suppose, can't expect instant success. Your boy is gonna keep on plucking, and hopefully y'all will enjoy what I've got cooking. Cheers!

Chapter 4: All That Matters

"Again."

Wren slapped his face, groaning. "Blast, really?"

" _Ret'lini, ner'vod,_ " Shana insisted. "Just in case. I'm the outsider here, I need to fully grasp my role."

Shana had her armor and arsenal entirely stripped out and arrayed on her bed. All her DCs, the -15A, the -15S, her pair of -17s, and oh the things she'd do to get her hands on a DC-17m. Not yet though. There was her _bes'kad_ , already sharpened and oiled; that she'd done first. There was her jetpack, the Mitrinomon Z-6; a temperamental but potent classic. It was awaiting a full tuneup, the needy thing. Next to it was a pair of missiles, conical anti-armor models, one for the launcher and a spare for carry on her chest rig. They were expensive medicine, and Shana dearly hoped she wouldn't need them. Still, the risk of running into vehicles or crew-served weapons couldn't be ignored. There were assorted grenades; two frags, two thermals, two cryobans, and two stuns. Her armor was laid out across the rest of the bed. She had her gauntlets at the workstation table; contained within the right was her Czerka Multithrower, a flamethrower and slugthrower combo contained in the over-under mount along the side of the gauntlet. The slugthrower was, in Shana's mind, a highly underrated piece of kit, with a pair of internal 20 round magazines that Shana filled with tranquilizers and bolos for capture missions and lethal slugs for missions like this one. Within the left gauntlet was a Dur-24 wrist laser and an Arakyd micro-missile launcher, contained in the same Czerka-manufactured modular over-under mount. Those gauntlet mounted weapons were known for being popular with _Mando'ade_ , but were not actually a component of traditional _beskar'gam_ , or even Mandalorian built. Shana had her helmet plugged into the computer terminal; SENA had described it's computer system as cozy. She had added some criteria that constituted cozy for her, before taking a hacksaw to Shana's system preferences, insisting the new configuration would be 'the same as before, but better'.

Shana wasn't really game to all that, never much for code or droidcraft. She wasn't sure how to regard SENA. On the one hand, the ostensibly female presence was welcome; being around a strange young man, alone in space was just an unnecessarily stressful proposition, for countless reasons. And having someone else who understood Mando'a was a surprise beyond pleasent, so far from Mandalore. At the same time, it was more than a little unnerving to be watched and listened to all times by an unblinking, never-sleeping presence. Not that Shana planned on unnecessary mischief, but she didn't need to have anything to hide to be a little skeeved out. At least when she'd asked SENA about it, the response was heartening. "Don't worry," she had said. "I show him the feeds when I see something pertinent, I'd space him before I let him use the cameras to peep. Not that I think he would." So there was that; at least the eyes and ears on the walls were also enforcing her privacy.

Shana reassembled her gauntlets, laying them down with the rest of her armor before heading over to the refresher sink mirror, a wooden box the size of a small parcel in her hands. _"Aliit'buir's Mythosaur bone beads."_ Shana rolled one around in her palm. Carved into each durasteel-tough bone shard were symbols of strength and power; Krayt Dragons, Rancors, Wampa, and great mountain sized Mythosaurs, each being hunted by carved Taung warriors. Also depicted were Mandalorian triumphs over various traditional foes; Sith, Jedi, and Old Republic forces cast down by heroes of old bearing the T-shaped visor. 12 beads in all, designed specifically to hold long hair securely during combat; a gift passed from mother to daughter after being recieved by Shana's maternal ancestor going five generations back, a gift from the Mandalore himself given for sacrifice and bravery under his service. There was a story that came with the beads, one Shana had first heard in reassurance from her grandmother, when her mother and father would leave Mandalore together on missions and jobs. There was power in the beads; the power of the Mythosaur attracted spirits to the Taung and Mandalorian warriors carved into the charms. If the wearer was a true _Mando'ad_ , brave and honorable, the warrior spirits would watch over that being, tugging on the strings of fate to keep that _Mando'ad_ safe. Shana didn't strictly believe such things, but she felt the strength of her ancestors in the beads regardless. She sat and began braiding, the way her mother taught her; tied far enough down so that Shana's helmet could fit securely on top with the beaded braids hanging visible about her shoulders, or tied up again within the helmet's environmental seal.

"Your objective is the High Administrator's office and anything within it that incriminates the Administrator in Splinqui's murder. From written documents to computer files to a verbal confession, however you can manage it. We roll in, cut through, get the dirt, and split. SENA will insert it into the holonet tracelessly, giving Hakyo and his friends the perfect jutificaction and opportunity to organize a food riot that will change this rust clod forever. Me and SENA will insert you and extract you from the Lady; our transport records will read that the Lady left system half a day ago with a full shipment of durasteel oxides, backed up by that little fake exit vector we pulled and the Lady's ECM suite. Hakyo will meet us in orbit once he's done planetside, and we'll all leave with nobody the wiser but us." Wren sat in the hall on the other side of the durasteel bulkhead, talking through the open doorway while Shana ran her underwear-clad gear check, out of his sight.

"You're not coming?" Shana finished her braids, shaking her head side to side to make sure the mechanism within the beads would hold, not that they'd ever given in any way before. She then moved for her armor's undersuit.

"No," Wren answered. "Any connection that can be made between the raid and the podracing clubs will sink the ship; forget the Hutts, the New Republic would back the Administrator. These guys already know me, I can't be seen as a part of this. But they don't know the Lady, and they don't know you. That's the only way this was gonna work."

Shana pulled on her breastplate and gauntlets, and then began fixing the smaller leg and arm plates to their magnetic binders within the fabric of her undersuit. Shana frowned, chewing her next words around carefully within her head. "You seem to have a lot of history with this place," she finally said, immediately cursing herself. _"Di'kutla adiik. Silly girl. That didn't sound nosy at all."_

She heard Wren sigh to himself, along with a soft bonk as he let his head rest back on the wall between them. "Yeah," he responded, chewing over his own words now. _"Go ahead,"_ he told himself. _"Just tell her that this is where you ran to after you helped the galaxy's most infamous tyrant with his second run of it. See how fast that moral streak of hers turns on you once she knows who you are and what you've done."_ The spacer ran a hand through his curly brown hair. "I spent a lot of time here between jobs," he said. "As a hooligan, with Hakyo."

"Scandalous," Shana replied, her tone dry as she attended to her jetpack, removing its outer casing so she could clean its internals.

Wren nodded, simply glad that his moralistic and highly attractive passenger didn't have more to say about his time as a professional rioter. "It was fun," he admitted. "Fighting, food, booze, brotherhood; any red-blooded human male's paradise."

"So then why leave?" Shana had pulled her helmet down over her head; if there was judgement in her voice, it was lost in passage through her helmet.

 _"Because I inexplicably care what random women think about me,"_ he joked to himself. It took a moment for Wren to muster up an acceptable form of the truth. "Someone showed me how tired I was of living it up while people starved around me," he eventually responded.

Shana took a second to confirm that whatever SENA had done to her helmet was tolerable, and found various things running smoother than normal; her 360 degree feed was clearer, her eye tracking selector and wink-to-command system was more responsive, her ammunition counters were finally registering her Multithrower and micro-missile launcher properly, and Force, the holonet feed for her ID software was back to functional. "So you just left?"

Wren winced. There it was. He couldn't shake the feeling of accusation, despite the fact that none came through the voice filter. Despite his usual resistance to that pesky litte torture device he carried called his moral compass. "Yeah," he said haltingly, his regret on clear broadcast despite his attempt to avoid such.

Shana came through her open doorway, all ready for war, helmet on her hip. She gave him a hand and helped pull him up off the floor. He stood over her there, and she pouted slightly, never a fan of being a shorter woman with a decently handsome male standing over her as she craned her neck back. Wren felt his stomach flip. "You came back," she said quietly, twisting Wren's chest with an invisible fist cast by the flash of her green eyes. "And you're not gonna leave again without changing this place for the better. Isn't that all that matters?"

They stood there, Wren speechless and flush-faced, and soon Shana felt herself blushing as well, forested green locked to steely gray. Then the speaker on the wall cut through the mesmer between them. "Okay, kids. Any closer than this and we're gonna get scrambled on," SENA said.

Shana was the first to break off, jamming her helmet on over her head. Wren quickly came back to himself, and he strode ahead of her, up into the cockpit and right into his chair. "Ready to change a world?" He asked her, hand raised to the ramp-down switch above him.

He couldnt see it through her visor, but a still-blushing Shana Tor'kad was grinning from ear to ear. "Drop me, _ner'vod_." Wren threw the switch, and the ramp dropped before Shana's feet, the still, thin air of Mon Gazza's upper atmosphere pervading the ship. She nodded that Mando nod, just a tiny tip of the head, before shuffling down the stairs and leaping out into the wind with a shout of " _Oya_!" Wren flipped the switch again, and guided the Lady higher and wide of the Administrative Palace's sensor bubble.

"Are you reading, Shana?" The spacer fiddled with his comms controls until the Mandalorian's voice came through on his headset.

 _"Clear as Shuror spring,"_ she squaked back at him.

"Perfect. Me and SENA will isolate the palace from here, jam it out with the Lady's ECM suite. Call us when you need us." Wren leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair, before heading into his room to roll up a cigarra.

"She's really got your number," SENA said softly. Wren took a long drag, holding it, and letting it go into the vent, before heading back to the cockpit with his herb and papers. He slung himself hard into his chair.

"Yeah," he admitted. There was a silence, a scant moment's pause. A true rarity; SENA could crash local holonet access and run every system on the Hasty Lady ragged at the same time. That kind of mind didn't generally need actual effort to find her words.

"Are you gonna be alright?"

Wren couldn't help but snicker. "No kriffing way."

* * *

Shana dropped. Legs together, arms tight by her sides, she dropped. A tilt here, a twist there; a truly skilled jumper saved her fuel for use in the target area and exfitration, finding her way to the drop zone using as little thrust as possible. So Shana did, till the palace began to loom before her, a hexagonal target of durasteel with a high tower.

 _"The Administrator's palace is a repurposed IM-455 modular garrison base, left over by the Empire from their takeover of the spice industry,"_ Wren gabbed into her ear. _"We've got it's defense system jammed up tight, they won't be able to target something human sized. Just keep in mind that if the Lady is coming in to get you, she's not gonna be able to hide herself. Not at that range."_

Shana didn't respond. Her mind was already fixed on all the many things she'd do to the being responsible for every twisted thing she'd seen and heard in her stay on Mon Gazza.

* * *

High Administrator Gevil Orotus was a simple man, with simple desires. Food. Wine. Women. Creature comforts. With all the ruckus and squabbling to settle between the various factions, a well rounded relaxation at the end of each day was a minor indulgence. Fair payment for his services to his world. He had the first two at his desk, a luscious portion of prime rib of nerf, with a mushroom gravy, root mash, and a simply divine Corellian dry red. He had just been contemplating the third pleasure when something unbelievable crossed his vision. There was a man outside his window. A man with a missile launching off his back.

The adminstrator found himself on the other side of his office, confused and battered, a symphony of pain playing across his body. By the time he could lift his head, the figure was there, standing on the shards of glass and wood strewn about the gaping hole in the side of the high observation tower. By the time he drew himself to his feet, the fear had seized him in the realization. One of those miserable ingrates had hired some Boba Fett wannabe to oust him from his rightful rule at blasterpoint.

"You've made the worst mistake of your career, assassin," he coughed, desperately searching for the sound of his guards through the ringing in his ears. To his profound relief they burst in then, through the doors and into a hail of blaster fire, then slugthrower rounds, cones of flame, micro-missiles, and all manner of violence and assault. Gevil watched paralyzed as this monster slaughtered his security teams. Then, the assassin turned that wretched visor his way. Out came a short, wicked saber.

"Panic button," the Mandalorian hissed, far too close to Gevil. " _Now_."

The Administrator opened his mouth, but the Mandalorian hovered the tip of his blade before his mark's tongue, and the beurocrat begrudgingly pressed the brooch on his lapel. Durasteel security doors slammed shut and immediately thrummed under a powerful magnetic seal.

"W-well?" He said, trying to sound unafraid. "Do it already. Scum."

The Mando laughed, loud and barking, and Gevil winced. "Oh, I'd love to," Shana said, pulling her helmet off her head. "But first, you're talking. Splinqui. Why?"

Gevil scoffed. "Why would I have anything to do with...-" The saber flashed, the administrator's ear flying off and bouncing onto the floor with a wet bloody slap. He howled; "You schutta!" Shana grabbed him by the collar and hooked him with the guard of her _bes'kad_ , decking him hard till his face was exploded to her satisfaction.

"I will _feed_ you your own kriffing choobies!" She roared to him. "Splinqui! Why! _Now_!"

"Why _not_!?" Gevil gasped. The man could hardly think; he hadn't been struck this hard since he had his father killed. "The slime, those worthless specks of rust don't deserve... What's your word? _Bas neral_?"

Shana's look of disgust deepened, and the administrator just cackled nervously, until Shana pulled a small cylinder from the blaster pack pouches of her chest rig and beaned him in the forehead with it. "Anything else you'd like to add?"

* * *

"Wren, I'm reading a flight of Z-95s and a LAAT/i launching from the palace."

The spacer ground out his cigarra and hopped to the controls with a string of expletives, though SENA had already brought them about and kicked up the throttle. The four snubfighters were grouped tight, each dumping a pair of concussion missiles. SENA set the quad lasers to single fire and turned the composite beams live, stitching warheads with streams of red bolts. Wren spun his selector wheel to cluster missiles, locking targets with three twitches of the eye and launching two rounds. Missiles passed each other, smashing into tight packets or solid rays of red energy on one end and bursting open to dispense submunitions on the other. The Headhunters were quickly swarmed and wrecked. Wren spun his thumbwheel to the dual cannons.

"Time to pick up a chick," he jested.

* * *

"Y-yeah." Gevil spat a wad of blood and mucous onto Shana's breastplate. "Smile for the cams."

Shana took just a moment to comprehend, before slamming her helmet back on and letting all the sensor warnings she'd been missing flood across her vision. Then she dove left, behind a tall pillar of polished natural stone, as the gunship behind her kicked up little green explosions in her wake. That slime Gevil scrambled away, but Shana couldn't spare the time to waste him, clawing at her chest rig for her second missile. As the LAAT/i gunship chewed away at her cover, she fixed it to the launcher, caught one of _Aliit'biur's_ hairbeads in her hand for just a moment, and then sprang, rolling over till she was in position before launching her weapon. The missile burst, throwing Shana with the proximity of the shockwave. But as the smoke cleared, her heart sank. The gunship had gained twenty feet of altitude at the last moment; her missile had hit the ceiling, dealing no damage to her target. Damning herself for losing her cool at the sight of her mark and wasting her first shot, Shana saw the gunship's chin guns line themselves up, and raised her left arm in final desperation. The blaster bolts chewed their path towards her as she emptied her Arakyd MML, smashing the LAAT/i with all-too-small general purpose rounds; a lethal guided surprise for infantry but sorely underpowered against vehicular armor. When the gunship pitched violently, it's weapons fire spraying wildly off target as it dropped into a tailspin, she regarded her launcher with amazement.

 _"Pretty sure that one counts as mine,"_ Wren said in her ear. He smiled to her through the Lady's canopy as the YZ-series transport pulled up in place of the LAAT/i crashing into the rust below, the dorsal and ventral dual turbos venting hot depleted tibana. The Hasty Lady dropped ramp, and with a short dash and a burst from her jetpack, she felt that durasteel plate under her feet again. Shana scrambled into the cockpit as the ramp closed and Wren began selecting his exit vector.

"Did it work?" She panted, collapsing into the copilot's chair.

Wren couldn't stop grinning as he handed her a headset. "Take a listen for yourself," he said. So Shana sat and listened, as Mon Gazzans swept through the helplessly outnumbered and conspicuously directionless Administrator's forces, to claim the first real meals of their lives.

* * *

 _"Political turmoil on the Outer Rim today as Mon Gazzan citizens riot throughout the capital city. These riots have come on the heels of decades of debate over Mon Gazza's infamous food laws, once a necessary rationing system on the barely inhabitable world, but now seen as a backwards relic of the ruling Orotus regime, a dynasty backed by the Hutts which has owned and governed Mon Gazza since its initial colonization, save for the period of Imperial rule. We now know that these riots were precipitated by a local holonet post, sent from the High Administrator's office though his public relations account, containing a confession to the assassination of Splinqui Horbaht. Known and beloved on Mon Gazza as Splinqui the Charitable, Horbaht had amassed a huge fortune via decades of championships, and leveraged that fortune politically in the form of the Open Table Movement, a political entity focused on the food laws and their repeal. We are also now receiving reports that desertion has indeed spread through the Orotus administration, and that OTM has taken control of the capital building, the capital spaceport, and potentially the administrator's palace as well. The Hutts have also released a statement, calling for talks with OTM leadership and a focus on normalizing trade as soon as possible. More updates on this developing story as they come in."_

"Shut off that prattle, Captain. I've heard enough."

The newsfeed cut out, allowing the ambient bustle of the bridge to wash over Admiral Uyoroi Kemin. She peered out through the shark-toothed viewports into the wash of color before her. There was such beauty here; vibrant washes of gas and dust, rich in a cornucopia of exotic materials and lit by a bizarre energy reaction, an aftereffect of the particle desintigration warhead that had doomed this world. Here and there were chunks of solid matter that had been thrown by the blast wave clear of the annihilating matter-energy reaction. Some still glowed, hot embers of the planet's shattered core, like a heart; murdered and still bleeding.

The Shards of Byss.

"Report from Mon Gazza," said Denil Tranthra, her ever-faithful right hand. Uyoroi sighed, sinking back into her chair while waving her subordinate to proceed. "The High Administrator was assaulted in his palace by a lone Mandalorian assassin wearing white armor with red trim. This assassin then left in a YZ-775 light freighter, which also jammed the palace defense systems during the insertion, and defeated palace defenses, Z-95 Headhunters, and an LAAT/i gunship scrambled to respond. Additionally, the Administrator did not make the alleged transmission. The YZ transport spoofed the transmission's origin flawlessly to appear as though it originated through the official government channels."

Uyoroi grinned viciously. "That's one of Dodonna's, if I'm not mistaken. The Mandalorian, I mean. But the YZ... One that has brains and brawn far beyond it's stock configuration? And all this comes together to overturn the Mon Gazza food laws, of all things?" Uyoroi had the scent, and could practically taste her prey. "I think we've found our loose end, Denil. And so have the Rebels."

"Shall we set out in pursuit, ma'am?"

Admiral Kemin flashed her icy blue eyes his way. "No, Captain. With the destruction if the Byss Run we have but one shot out of the Deep Core, and we must reserve it for when our objective is revealed," she explained. "Lest we find ourselves on one end of the galaxy with our catch on the other, vulnerable to the upstart New Republic. We'll need to secure the services of an auxiliary. One capable of capturing our prey alive. And I think I know just the outfit to call."


	5. Bleeding Your Heart Dry

AN: Hey folks. The train rolls onward, but be sure to double check last chapter for a section I added to the end that helps move the greater plot of TOTHL along. I can't deny that slow viewership and no feedback is disheartening, but I've got real faith in the quality of what TOTHL can become, so I'll keep laying this out how ever long it takes. Cheers, enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 5: Bleeding your Heart Dry

 _"Kriff this... Not again..."_

He could feel the dream form, a nebulous but inexorable spread of thought across his sleeping brain. Despite knowing it all the while, Wren couldn't fight the flow of memory, dragging him back again, always, to the flashing lights, the stale air, the sweat and fear. Then he heard the electric thump of blaster cannons, and with it fled the last of Wren's residence to the nightmare. He was running, and his comrades were dying behind him in desperate, failing bids to them back.

"What on the kriffing spaceways?" Platoon lead gasped, pounding the door lock control. "Damn Rebel scum!"

Uril Jumal, a hardy dark-skinned girl from Tatooine, couldn't keep the terror from her voice. "Krayt Dragons, sir. Blasted Canyon Krayts." Wren heard her stiffle a sob before her comm feed cut. His blood ran cold; Uril was one of the platoon's unshakeable cores. Her fear stoked his like a hypermatter reaction. Wren still hadn't caught sight of one, but the helmet feeds were blurry collages of white plastoid, crimson swathes of cannon and torpedo fire, and mortal glimpses of sandy hides, razor talons and toothed maws.

"Meters to void?" queried Sergeant Tyarl. The grizzled veteran never spoke of his home planet, but he'd been running top zero grav units since the Battle of Hoth, at least. Some whispered when they thought he wasn't listening that he'd first fought in the Clone Wars. It was a rumor that he had never confirmed nor denied, letting it hang loose and further add to his reputation.

"Three fifty..." Something whispered into the comms. Wren barely heard it, but shouted it up anyways.

"Split for it Eschlan," Tyarl spat. "Take the asset and book it for the assault shuttle. Get the hell off this deathtrap."

Wren hesitated hard, the mission objective stowed in his backpack cargo pod. "You need to come with me sir, I don't have your finalization orders..."

"Damn the finalization," the sergeant cursed. He clamped a manipulator onto Wren's shoulder and dragged him down the corridor. "Listen son. Damn it all, the orders, the Emperor, and the Empire whole! Were you born on Byss, son? First time off planet with the Stormtrooper Corps?" Wren didn't have time to respond, Tyarl already knew Wren's history as well as any of his subordinates. "Of course you were. Listen good, the Empire is not what you were taught it was. In the beginning it was everything the galaxy needed; security, stability, justice. But couched in all that was Palpatine, that worm."

The sealed security door sounded like a gong, no more weapons fire sounding from beyond. The eight remaining troopers settled into firing positions. Sergeant Tyarl continued to shove Wren along.

"You haven't been listening to the stuff that's been coming through the command nets. But it'll be all over the holonet. Palpatine is dead. Byss is gone. Don't dock with Spitefather. Don't let this thing get caught up in what's left of this Order. Take the shuttle by force if you have to. Just take the droid, and jump for free." Wren began to protest, but his leader clocked his suit on the head. "Don't you back talk me Trooper. This 176th Void is older than you. The rest of us are steeped in blood, but compared to us you're clean and pure. So you'll carry our flag along." There was something in his superior's voice that Wren hadn't heard before. "We were on the wrong side of history, but you can turn our legacy into something worth remembering."

The hardened officer continued to manhandle his subordinate, through another airlock that he immediately slammed shut, pausing only to utter a final series of commands. "Take this thing away, Eschlan. Do you hear me, get the hell away from here and don't ever stop. Someone is gonna come looking for all this, once the dust has settled. Don't let them find it. And don't let our story end with this."

Trooper Eschlan could've cut through the door. Part of him wanted to, not at all agreeing with the way the elder hierarchy of his unit had played the end of this mission. But then he heard the roars, the weapons, and then the screams.

"He didn't lie to you," said the voice in the comms again. Wren swore under his breath, still not recognizing the voice as that of one of his comrades. "But no matter what you believe, don't let us get eaten here. Please." Wren didn't respond, but began putting one foot in front of the other. Each step he took was hounded by the echoing bellows of the Krayt Dragons, and the metallic tear of security doors and bulkheads battered open behind him as he picked his way back to empty vacuum. Every so often he would encounter Rebel personnel. Some tirned to fight Wren, and got cut down for their trouble. Others apparently knew what had been let loose to run rampant through the station, and made no actions against him in their haste to flee.

"No," the new voice said at the last moment before Wren reached for a door control. "The Krayts are already in through there, keep straight instead. I can see it through your sensor array."

"How can you see it if I can't?" Wren protested.

"Emulation of sensor functions your HUD can't display in a way you can interpret. It doesn't matter, just go!"

Wren made his way into a shuttle bay, emptying out as he entered, New Republic vessels filled to capacity as they left. Wren moved for the magnetic atmosphere containment field, yet he hardly covered half of the hangar bay when he heard the groan and grind of failing durasteel. Through the back wall of the hangar, the ceiling of the hanger, and the door Wren had entered through, sandy colored dragons forced their way through the structure of the ship. They were heavyweight bulls, all of them at least 35 meters from tooth to tail, and Wren's frantic blaster fire gnawed slowly into their hides. "I can get you through this," the voice offered. "But you need to lock out your suit inputs so I can effect your control system without interference."

It was suicide, surely, but there was a tone in the voice that Wren picked out as genuine, one of his many knacks. So he did as instructed, and watched in frightened awe as his suitmanipulated him rather than the other way around. His mysterious electronic ally dispensed the remainder of his suit's arsenal, picking apart their anatomies with precision as they bore down on the last survivor of the 176th Void. Wren could only watch and try not to scream.

* * *

Shana stirred, mumbling to herself before sitting up, her vision framed by a tangled crimson halo. _"K'uur..."_ she groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Who's _shebs_ do I have to boot to get some quiet?" It took her a moment to realize precisely what she was hearing, and it sent her scrambling for clothing, ending up with a pair of thin shorts and a tanktop before she keyed her door open and shot down the hall. She saw Hakyo hovering by the door to the cockpit, and as she beelined for it, he moved into her path.

 _"Copaani mirshmure'cye?_ Looking for a smack in the face?" The slight, fiery-haired girl was as far as could be from amused. _"Usenye!"_

"He will be fine in a few moments. Let the episode run its course," the brute growled into his droid. Wren belted out another fearful cry, and Shana pounded Hakyo's belly with her fist.

"Like hell! _Kaysh akaan'shab!_ He's warsick!" She struck him again. "He needs kriffing help! And if you won't then I'm damn well gonna!" The Abyssian didn't budge, and Shana's teeth ground harder. "Don't make me get my _bes'kad_ , or I'll have you mending all the way to Coruscanta."

"Crushing you would be easy, little female, back scratcher or no. But it would anger Eschlan." He moved finally, with Shana shoving him along more for her benefit than any increase in the speed of his departure, letting her trigger the door and step inside.

At first Wren was nowhere to be seen, but Shana could hear his teeth chattering from behind the cockpit chair. He was stuffed under the flight console, knees drawn up to his chest, and as she came up upon him she saw the blaster in his hands, his S-5. Immediately Shana grasped it, twisting the weapon from his hands despite his pleading to keep it. "Are you kriffing insane, we're gonna get ripped up and eaten, just like the...-"

"No Wren, you're on the Lady!" Shana folded herself up and sat down in front of him, pulling his face and forcing eye contact. "You're on the Lady, in the cockpit. On the Lady, you understand?"

Wren had that look she'd grown to recognize; that downward stare into another time and place, a more traumatizing one; a cruel trick of the mind trapping Wren in visions of his _dar'yaim_ , the hell he could not bear to return to. But at her touch, her insistence of his reality, and the sight of her face, Wren managed to pull himself back from the vividness of the nightmare. He could smell whatever it was she set her refresher to, something sweet and fruity with a slight herbal sharpness as well, and that grounded him further. Shana pulled Wren to his feet, slipping an arm under his and across his back to his far shoulder, the heavy pistol still hanging from her other hand. She ushered him along out of the cockpit, rubbing his back soothingly, hardly pausing to glower at Hakyo before guiding Wren to his own bedroom. The spacer went for his Marcan, but fumbled with the paper, cursing in frustration. Shana took it from his shaking hands, murmuring softly; "I'll get you one of my Shentos." She passed down the hallway to her room, grabbing a handful of her prerolled cigarras. Hakyo was looming in the hall on her way back. Shana made to move past the hulk, but he didn't stop her.

"Do not mistake my inaction as ignorance or apathy to the seriousness of Wren's condition," the oddly eloquent giant said. "I have no frame of reference towards his treatment. Abyssians do not experience psychological trauma as a result of violence. Please, help my bond-brother however you can. He has suffered so for many years."

Shana had been preparing some form of retort when Hakyo had begun speaking, but found herself disarmed by his response. "I'll do what I can," she promised. "But he may need more help than I can offer. Warsickness is a truly fickle thing." She dodged past him and into Wren's room, and found him gripping the S-5 again. She moved to snatch it from him but he shooed her away, speaking, albeit haltingly, in a more cognizant voice.

"I-it's okay, I'm all... I'm all here now. It just helps to hold it." He sat on his bed, back to the wall, clutching his blaster with both hands.

"You'll have to at least take one hand off it to smoke this," she said, crawling up onto the bed next to him and offering him a Shento with a gentle smile. With a sigh Wren took it, Shana lighting hers before handing him the matches. He inhaled deeply, and again until the shaking began to slow, and he set his weapon down on the mattress.

"Damn that's tasty," Wren said, shaking his head. He hugged himself, and Shana put an arm around him. Eventually Wren let his neck go lax, resting his ear on her bare freckled shoulder, and they sat there for some time.

"Thank you," the spacer whispered after long, catching her soft green eyes in the gentle gloom of the minimum-setting room lights and the glow of burning herb.

"I can understand if you don't wanna talk about it," she said softly, brushing a lock of red from her face. "But I think you should. I'm no doctor, but every _Mando'ad_ can recognize warsickness when we see it. Holding this in is... _Tal'galar kar'ta,_ it's bleeding your heart dry."

Wren stared off into the bulkhead. Then he coughed, and said with a dry-mouthed chuckle; "Can't really talk about much till I get something to sip on." He moved to rise off the bed but Shana grabbed his wrist and tugged him back to seated.

"Stay. Rest. I'll make you some _shig_ , it'll help set you right. _Udesii, ner vod_ , I'll be right back."

Wren sat there, mulling over exactly what he could manage to say. Before he could run that line of thought through, Shana returned with two tall steaming mugs and a flask between her teeth. Passing one to Wren, she set hers down on the nightstand and popped the flask open. " _Tihaar_ ," she said with a grin, passing it in front of Wren's nose so he could detect that same fruity scent he'd picked up off her person. Shana spiked each mug generously, before setting the flask aside.

Wren took a long swig of the herbal brew. "Mmh. What is that?"

" _Shig_ is usually behot, but I add some guroot, and a touch of Grey Gabaki too. Helps make some behot go further on long trips away from home. _T_ _ihaar_ is made of varos fruit juice, a little splash of tropical Mandalore, grown a ways south of Keldabe."

Wren took another mouthful, remarking; "Delicious." They sat in silence together for another long while, moving through mugs of the stuff until Shana's flask ran dry and they were both well and tipsy. Shana could feel that bubbling feeling in her brain that marked the boundary between buzzed and properly drunk. And Wren felt so nice leaning up against her; warm and solid and heavy but not so much larger to be squishing her. Still, she couldn't quite feel her arm anymore.

 _"What is this man made of? Bricks?"_ Shana wondered. _"Kaysh guur'sakraan, he loves his food. You've seen as much already."_ The Mandalorian woman shifted his head from her shoulder to her lap, and Wren took a quarter turn, staring up at her with those piercing grey eyes, like polished nuggets of _beskar_.

Wren was fully mesmerized. Maybe it was the exhaustion and stress of the nightmare, maybe it was the cocktail of smoking herb, tea, and liquor, maybe it was just the way Wren was beginning to feel, their proximity, and their thin and minimal sleeping clothes, but Wren couldn't pull his eyes from Shana's, or seemingly any other part of her. It was a potent truth serum. "I was in a zero-gravity assault unit during Operation Shadow Hand," he blurted. The leak widened, and the truth came spilling out. "We got an action order to seize a research station housing an experimental droid brain. But the enemy had set up an insurance plan, an A-class bulk freighter stripped out and filled from bow to stern with Canyon Krayt Dragons. When the enemy knew they'd lost, they opened the cargo transfer gates and split." Wren shut his eyes, fighting back the rush of foul memories. "Only I made it out. With SENA, a few crimson Krayt Dragon pearls, and these kriffing nightmares."

The look on her face broke what remained of his composure, Wren rubbing the bridge of his nose as tears began forming. "There's a thing we say to commemorate passed comerades," she said quietly. " _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum;_ I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal." Shana scratched his scalp gently. "How many people have you told?" She asked. "How long has it been?"

"This much?" Wren frowned a different sort of frown, made of a different feeling. "You make... Five. And Force; years. Since I left..." He trailed off, and Shana saw why on his face; another thing he couldn't bear to even consider. Trauma under trauma, concealed as much to avoid reliving it as to avoid her scrutiny.

Shana felt her stomach do little twists, pressing a long, closed-lipped kiss against his forehead. "No more suffering in silence alone," she stated firmly. " _Ni'gaar hukaat'kama,_ I've got your back."

The spacer said nothing, simply nodding once. Eventually he gave into his exhaustion and fell back into slumber, and Shana slipped away as soon as he was out cold. There was a special destination in mind, a touch of uncharacteristic rulebreaking on the menu. Shana hit a right out of Wren's bedroom, heading down into the rear sections of the ship. She picked the door marked 'droid bay', and opened it, coming face to barrel with a ceiling mounted turret. Further inspection revealed that it bore a pair of Tenloss Syndicate DXR-6 disruptor rifles. Extremely illegal, utterly lethal. Even if she'd been wearing her beskar'gam, it was doubtful she'd survive more than a single blast.

"Unless you plan on making a career as dust in the vents, I suggest you stay out," SENA quipped.

"I'm not here for anything but words," Shana said.

"Heh, you realize I can hear you no matter where you are on the ship, right?" Shana felt her face flush, and the disruptors hardly moved from her face. "I heard the whole thing."

"And? You've nothing to say about it?" SENA's evasiveness was beginning to grow into something worse than frustrating. Disruptors be damned.

"It's not mine to talk about," SENA retorted. "Wren tells who he trusts, when ever he decides he trusts them enough. But if you want my opinion, I can share it. I don't particularly trust you, or understand why Wren trusts you. He's got an instinctual thing for a lot of stuff, including people, that much I trust. But I don't see what he sees in you, and I think I see other things he doesn't." SENA's candor softened a shade. "But all the same, I can't ignore what you did for him. Or replicate it. He doesn't hear me from the wall when he thinks we're back over Velabri. So I don't really have a choice but to trust that you can give him a help that he's willing to receive. That you really care as much as you're acting like you do."

Shana, feeling very intimidated by all this despite herself, recognized tacit approval when she saw it. _"Vor'e,"_ she uttered. "Thank you."

SENA was about to respond, but she generated a wailing alarm instead. "I hate to be like this, but we just got lit up like a lightsaber by at least two dozen sensor sets, and I'm detecting the formation of several hyperspace entry-point emissions, with exit vectors plotting into our vicinity," the electronic intelligence warned. "Someone just found us and is jumping up into our faces as we speak."


	6. Out Is Through

AN: Hello again ladies and germs, and welcome to the meat grinder! On today's menu is action, action, action, as we do our best to run the Hasty Lady ragged. Hope you enjoy it. A big shout out going to Kam I Am for being the officially recognized Oldest TOTHL Fan. Thanks for helping stoke my fiction reactor. Cheers!

* * *

Chapter 6: Out is Through

Wren woke with a start, recognizing even through exhaustion that sudden thump and the sinking stomach of deceleration for just a moment, before the inertial dampers returned the ship's interior to neutral momentum.

"We're out of hyperspace, SENA," he said. His tone was more irritated than he intended, and what he heard next only made it worse.

"Yeah, we got pulled. I'm setting up a missile run to chain onto our escape vector."

"Escape?" Wren laughed in his grogginess.

"Yes you nerf herder, this one is no joke." SENA grumbled. She was burning with annoyance. "They've got a gravity well projector in the area, we can't leave till it's dust or dead in the void, and I need time to sniff it out through all the rest of their sensor and comm traffic."

"Okay, hostility, why?"

The agitated AI threw Wren into the wall; a simple matter of cutting power to the local gravity projectors and inertial dampner and then pitching 15 degrees. "Because you can't say no to a piece of tail willing to give you the solar rotation, doe eyes and blasted tea, and went and helped her _topple a government_ while on a fekking hot burn across the galaxy, with mercs all over our tail," SENA spat. "Get up here, you've got a call."

"A call. Someone slapped us with an interdictor field and jumped to contact for a call?" Wren dusted himself off, darting out his door and pulling around the corner, and the moment the cockpit doors opened his heart sank further.

"Wren 'No-Holds' Eschlan!" The man's face filled the HUD; a wild shock of hair, now stark white and green in places, wide brown eyes, two rings of reddish metal in his left ear. Shana, sitting anxiously in the navigator chair, had never seen Wren scowl so deeply. Hakyo was folded awkwardly into the comm control chair.

"Utome," the captain said. "Long time no see Chol. How long has it been? How's the arm?"

The man on the screen had a vicious grin that only grew meaner. "Twelve years since Carida, bless it's dead bones. And mine! Thanks to that damn sitout shoulder lock of yours. You seem to be doing nice enough. Damn pretty dame, and I'll bet the big guy is great for cargomaster. Nice ship, bit junky looking but I'll bet she's hardly stock. Mine is..." He gestured about the bridge, with its distinctive dual crew pits. "Just a touch bigger. And you would never guess why, but I just couldn't go another cycle without seeing you!"

Wren cracked his own grin, belligerent and brash. "Finally figured out who torpedoed mom's exhaust port all those years ago?"

"Ahahaha!" Chol Utome tossed his head back with roaring laughter. "You always had jokes. Even when we were beating the poodoo out of each other at the Academy, you always had jokes. That's why I'm gonna have fun all the way to the deep core, sticking you in the fingernails so I can hear those jokes on the way to a grossly oversized payday. I'd ask you to go quietly, but I think we both know I'm hurting you anyways."

The comm channel closed, and Wren immediately said; "Threat assessment."

"Off the scale and up yours," SENA said, as she began highlighting the vessels spilling out of hyperspace. "Six modified Quasarfire bulk cruisers. No, eight. And there's a flotilla coming in at a longer standoff. High tonnage." The hulls spilled into crawlspace, a pack of twelve small and toothy Corellian gunships and a thick winged spearheaded vessel with a distinctive ventral hanger and dpuble command tower. SENA's tone was heated to the point of chipperness. "...And that's a Venator-class Star Destroyer. With added ventral primary batteries, and extra dual medium batteries, with a screen of DP-20s. Still feel so warm and fuzzy about feeding all the little people?"

Wren slung himself into his chair as SENA executed her missile locks, dumping four groups of four proton torpedoes from her forward triple-drum launchers. Wren had no time to confirm their impact visually; he heard the Lady herself, not SENA, utter a mechanical 'hit, hit, hit, hit' into his ear. It made Wren smirk; a relic of when the dear Lady was just like any other YZ-775. Two of the Quasarfires listed, spewing burning material and loose atmosphere, but the others took a turn to throw volleys from their turbolasers and ion cannons. Wren winced as he watched the shield meter jump down to 2370 SBD. "Two Quasar Fires are breaking off to pursue and launching fighters. Eta-2s coming fangs out in thirty seconds. Switching to cluster missiles. Permission to go nuts, cap?"

A wave of fresh sensor tracks washed over the Lady's displays as Actis-class interceptors spilled from the wide hangers of the approaching Quasar Fires; where Chol found the money to buy or build so many of the expensive little fighters, Wren couldn't fathom. "Go nuts, SENA. Show them what she's got." Wren deployed the autoblasters turrets, switched the quad lasers to converge with them forward, and danced his eyes across the clouds of little orange boxes on the heads up display. The Lady unerringly executed his directives, stitching through the closing formations of Eta-2s.

Shana could feel the drum mechanisms rotate through the cockpit bulkheads, radiating out from further back alongside the small crew lounge by the ramp, each cycling its trio of double length 24 round magazines. SENA launched two volleys of six cluster missiles, and the Lady immediately broke off and poured everything she had into her three engines.

The Lady's volley of missiles exploded into a thick wall of miniature concussion warheads. Despite the cloud of ordnance, the swift little Eta-2s evaded a good deal of the attack, slipping through and sweeping in behind the Hasty Lady to chip away at her shields with well-aimed fire from their oversized weapons. SENA swung back with the quad lasers, two streams of continuous heavy bolts reaching out from the Hasty Lady's waist. Wren focused on maneuvering, slipping into the zone as he danced the Lady about. Every so often, when the opportunity presented, Wren would suddenly kill the throttle, subjecting any unwary pilots that came to close or overshot to the composite lasers and autoblasters. Wren ground his teeth, Shana winced, and Hakyo watched unblinking as the battle ground on. The mercenary pilots showed their discipline, continuing to hound the Lady despite mounting losses to the light and unshielded fighters.

"SENA, whenever you get a whiff of that gravity well projector, I would be very much obliged!" Wren insisted. It had become much harder to catch them with the throttle feint, and they'd chipped the shields down to 1960 SBD. "These guys are actually pretty good. Chol must have taught them himself."

"Who _is_ that _chakaar_?" Shana asked. "He's got a nasty look about him. _Kaysh troan galar dinii_ , his face is leaking craziness."

Wren felt the twitch in his face; her colorfulness was disarming, but as soon as he had seen Chol, his stress had entered a new magnitude. "Crazy, and vindictive. We were bunkmates at the Stormtrooper Academy on Carida. They were pitting us against each other from the very first day; they made us fight, I broke his arm, and he's hated me ever since. The Navy poached him for TIE pilot training, and I never saw his mug again, till now. But I sure as hell heard about him. The waves he made through the Imperial Starfighter Corps spread into the merc game after Palpatine kicked it, and not in a good way."

The spacer could feel Shana's eyes bore into him, studying him for what he was, the veil lifted. "He's stuck in that past," she said. The implication hung there; that Chol was, and Wren wasn't. "Still spreading Palpatine's malice." Wren could taste her meaning and took heart in it, but shook his head none the less.

"I was Paltpatine's once, but I found a way to leave it behind. The prize I earned for getting this far was unlocking the chains he placed around my life." Wren scowled deeper. "Chol couldn't leave it behind because he never caught the bug to begin with. Carida broke me, but Chol was already broken when he got there."

"Gravitic trace complete," SENA announced. "But you're not gonna like this. Only way out is through; I'm marking it now."

Shana hissed at the change in the strategic picture; one CC-7700 interdictor frigate, running silent save for her gravity well projectors, tucked up alongside Chol's Star Destroyer, and surrounded by heavily armed Correlian escorts. "There's no way we're getting in there," she groaned in dismay. The young warrior looked over to the captain of her voyage, and saw the first stirrings of a grin peek out from under Wren's scowl. Shana's blood ran cold. "No."

"Mhmm."

Shana stood suddenly, slamming her fist on the console in front of her. "Don't you dare, Wren. There's gotta be another option."

That struck Wren humorously, and his crazed grin only grew. "You really don't know how space combat works," he gasped when his breath returned. "Only way out is through."

"How?" Shana was in another realm of disbelief. "You say that all _jare'la_ like a light freighter beating a whole armada is even remotely reasonable!"

"Didn't you say a warrior is more than his armor not minutes after we met?" Shana's face developed a full on pout. Wren was having as much fun as he's ever had while preparing a mad dash to freedom through overwhelming opposition. Shana's retort died in her throat as the Lady came around as tightly as she could, and the enemy force was laid out before her; the swarming mass of Eta-2 interceptors first. Behind them, two Quasar Fire cruisers burned in pursuit. Behind them, their four remaining compatriots formed a loose screen, and further still waited Chol's battlegroup.

"Ready on this end, skipper. Shields double front at 2970 SBD total, ECM on standby," SENA reported.

That finally seemed to snuff Shana's fuse a touch. "Wait... Twenty-nine seventy, or two ninety-seven?"

Wren laughed again. "Now she gets it!" He crowed. Wren threw the throttle open as the Hasty Lady plunged nose first into the jaws of the interceptor squadrons. Eight more cluster missiles left the Lady's drums, bursting open into the heart of the incoming formations and thinning them out dramatically. Shana's vision was frantically split between the dropping shield meter and the curtains of spherical explosions spreading across her vision, as Wren and SENA set the Lady's energy weapons against the fighters streaking by on all sides. Then they came out the other end, a trail of shattered spaceframes and desperate stragglers behind them.

IImmediately, the leading Quasar Fires began pouring heavy cannon shots into the gaping hole torn in the fighter screen. But these guns were much more sluggish than the breakneck Eta-2s, and Wren's evasions were successful against them more often than not. Wren spun his selector wheel and clicked it in twice. The icon for the dual cannons blinked brightly on the HUD as power springing from the Hasty Lady's core was shunted directly to the paired turbolasers. Bolts of colossal power lashed out from the Lady in flurries that approached those of the quad guns. The Quasar Fires died, one while still trying to angle itself into a firing solution. The other turned on seeing the death of its partner, but couldn't escape a lethal torrent of crushing strikes.

As Wren threaded his way between the burning crippled wrecks, the four remaining bulk cruisers harried her with sustained long range volleys. The spacer eyed his ammo counters as the HUD began to fill with detected Eta-2s, twice as thick as before. The tally was fourty-six ions, thirty-six protons, and twenty-six cluster missiles. Shana's bug-eyed expression grew stronger when she saw the numbers. The HUD came to life again as pilot and copilot began setting up their next move, bringing the shields back to 360 degree coverage, falling in at 1740 and slowly rising, until long shots from the approaching squadrons stopped the Lady's shield regeneration.

* * *

On the bridge of the Corusca Fist, Chol couldn't contain his glee. "Eschlan you perfect, magnificent bastard," he gushed. "Of course you would go and build the ultimate Q-ship. A fekking heavy cruiser stuffed into a smuggler's tin can. Classic Eschlan."

The warlord watched on the strategic plotter as the Hasty Lady began to clash with the second wave of interceptors. The YZ transport dispensed yet more cluster missiles, sweeping aside his forces with vast swaths of lethal seeking warheads. Their defensive screens scattered, the four remaining bulk cruisers were subjected to additional munitions, paired ion torpedoes bursting against their shields and striking them dead in space. "Such a savage little thing," Chol remarked, watching the little ship speed past the stricken Quasar Fires and angle in on the Corusca Fist. "And so petulant! Roll out the red carpet boys and girls, this one is worth it!"

* * *

Wren hollared loud as they danced through the last of the pickets. Shana was flinching with every bump and bang, and there were many, as the DP-20s schooling about the Venator shifted to intercept. "1310 SBD!" SENA shouted, as shots broke across their front arc at the same time that surviving Eta-2s began nipping at their rears.

Sweat beaded on Wren's brow, stinging his eyes as he pressed the Lady to her limits. One by one the Hasty Lady took the larger gunships, leaving them powerless, blasted open, or both. With a spin of the selector wheel Wren deployed the dual mass drivers. The Corusca Fist began looming large in the Lady's canopy, launching devastating curtains of blue energy pulses. "940 SBD! Star Destroyer is launching fighters! XG-1 StarWings and Skipray Blastboats!"

" _Nu draar_!" Shana lamented. "No way am I gonna die here on this _osik'la_ rustbucket! _Osi'kyr, osi'kyr, osi'kyr_!"

The approaching wave of heavy attack craft began slamming away at the Lady, the StarWings outriding to launch precise strikes while the Blastboats began dispensing constant, punishing attacks. "Now SENA!" Wren shouted.

From the droid bay, through the Lady's own computer core, through the comm and sensor equipment, SENA reached out. Grasping hold of each missile, she inserted fratricidal commands, spoofing their command signals to smash the oncoming missile attacks into themselves. Despite it, the pounding laid upon the Hasty Lady was beyond anything she'd seen in quite some time. "470 SBD!" Came SENA's from report. Shana was still babbling.

"Almost..." Wren growled through grinding teeth. "Hold together..."

"165!"

Wren pitched the Lady up, boosting as hard as she could muster, until the CC-7700 was in line of sight. Another round of impacts rattled the ship, heavy assault starfighters all around it struggling to pierce the electronic fog and solidly tag the YZ. "Almost..."

As another volley of shots slammed into the Hasty Lady's reflectors, something lurched in a dire new way, and a painful alarm began sounding. "40 SBD! Wren!"

"Got 'em!" He pounded the trigger, and a long burst of twelve shells tore from the mass drivers, each coated in a blue and red shell of propellant plasma. The flat anvil-faced frigate was eaten through and gutted by the destructive little shells. As soon as the last shell was lose, Wren slammed his hand down on the hyperspace control; he and Shana shared laughter and tears while Hakyo loosed a victorious roar as the stars stretched out before them, welcoming the Hasty Lady into the respite of hyperspace.

* * *

"Mr. Utome, I was under the impression that when I rendered payment of one and a half million NRC, I expected a YZ-775 transport, it's crew, and my experimental droid, all intact. And I can't help but notice that you haven't contacted our liaison to make good on your end of the bargain."

Chol picked at his teeth, lounging in a chair that was much more comfortable than the one the ship had come with. "Yeah, well, about that," the warlord sarcased. "When you talked about a modified YZ transport, you probably should've mentioned the sixfold missile capacity, or the reactor output rivaling a Dreadnought-class cruiser, instead of letting me think of smuggling compartments. Consider your initial payment as compensation for my damages, sustained in the course of a mission sabatoged by _your_ false pretenses."

Uyoroi was certainly an attractive woman, and the murderous face she made at Chol only endeared her further. "The balance of power in this galaxy is about to shift," she insisted with that high-chinned Imperial certainty that Chol couldn't help but laugh at. "You'd best find yourself in the good graces of the prevailing wind, dear Chol. Order will return to replace this haggard shell of democracy, and I fear that you and your lot may not find a place in a just galaxy."

"Fek you, greysuit." Chol flashed a cheeky grin, and oogled her shamelessly for good measure. The Imperial grays were conservative, sure, but their cut couldn't quite hide a woman of Uyoroi's voluptuousness, and Chol was in his usual mood of maximum disrespect. "Give me a call in a couple of years, when you know you're just like every other two-bit Imp warlord scrabbling for little crumbs of Palpatine's cake. I might just throw you a spanner."

Chol motioned to his comm officer to end transmission, leaning back in his comfy chair. "Damn Eschlan," he sighed, running a hand through his wildly dyed hair. "What kind of heavy weather have you gotten into?"

* * *

The cockpit was dark, save for the blue glow of hyperspace. Shana had always found the realm of hyperspace to be a thing of wonder and mystery. What lay beyond the tunnel of azure light? Such questions had boggled Shana's mind since she was but a girl sitting in her mothers lap, gazing out the viewports of her father's ship.

Wren too had an affinity for hyperspace. To him it was ultimate freedom, ultimate security. Tucked away in another dimension, half way to anywhere, beyond the reach of all but the most dangerous foes. He leaned back and blew Marcan smoke into the atmospheric vents. It was just the two of them; Hakyo was sleeping, and SENA had said she'd be defragmenting herself.

"You okay?" Shana asked after what must have been at least an hour of siting in silence, smoking away their lingering fears of death.

"I'm still alive," he said simply. "One more drink, one more meal, one more cigarra. Another jump."

Shana nodded once. "What's our next stop?"

"A nebula between Loronar and Exodeen. My mechanic Fink has his shop there, we're gonna sell our cargo to him, he'll work on the Lady and get us replenished, and from there we hit Coruscant."

Shana took a moment to think on that. "But we're already on the Corellian Run," she said. "It'd be faster if we just went straight through. We'll safe once we reach my employer, and you'll be able to find everything you need for the Lady on Coruscant."

"No," he said bluntly. "The Hasty Lady only flies at 100%, and only Fink goes under the hood."

Shana sighed. " _Ni ceta,_ " she said quietly. "If I hadn't convinced you to do what we did on Mon Gazza, this wouldn't have happened."

That elicited a soft chuckle from Wren. "Maybe," he admitted. "But aside from beating it out of Chol, there's no way to be sure."

Shana chewed her next line of inquiry around her mouth before she let it loose. "You didn't say you were a stormtrooper," she stated, with no further comment.

No comment because she didn't have anything else to say, Wren realized. No judgement. "I didn't want to be thought less of," the spacer admitted. "Big P and his boys aren't exactly popular. With anyone."

Shana watched across from the copilot chair, smacking Wren on the arm with the bottom of her fist. She waited till he turned to her, rubbing his arm, to firmly utter; "You're _not_ his." Wren's gaze flickered back to the blue walls of hyperspace, till she grasped his hand and pulled him back towards her. "You're not."

"...I know," he said after a while, when he could manage to meet her gaze. "In my head, I know." He rose out of his chair and slipped out of Shana's grasp. She moved to follow him out of the cockpit, but found him turning back towards her, two bottles in his hands that he'd grabbed from a refrigerator in the cockpit lounge. He passed one off to her, and written in basic on a label sporting a sandy walled, green roofed building was Hoygan's Old Theed Ale. He popped the cap and took a long swig, prompting Shana to do the same with hers. "I just don't always feel like it."

So they drank because they were free, and they drank till they felt like it.

* * *

Hakyo's snore was a deep rumble, interrupted as his single icy eye snapped open. His pointed ears twitched thrice, detecting a familiar sound intertwined with an unfamiliar one.

As Hakyo turned over, Wren and Shana stumbled down the cockpit corridor, roaring with laughter, practically falling over each other as they passed the crew lounge and ramp. They paused at the front of the crew quarters to teeter and totter, regarding each other with young drunken eyes and sleepy heads as they propped themselves against the bulkheads.

"We're gonna drop out in 'bout seven hours," Wren slurred. "Probably gonna wanna sleep some. Get sober before I gotta deal with Fink."

"You're not sounding thrilled," Shana commented with the smallest of hiccups. That pulled a snicker from Wren.

"Oh it's gonna be great. Fink is like Hakyo. An acquired taste, ya know?" Wren pulled a cigarra from behind his ear, lighting it, dragging on it, and then passing it along. "He was raised by Verpines. And even they thought he was a prodigy. Guy has radio transmitter implants, lets him communicate with his droids and Verp folks by thought. Real weird, kinda being who is always talking five meters over your head."

Shana took the burning herb and pulled deeply, nodding her head at the same time. " _Brikaase ca,_ " she said, in a voice that tangled up in Wren's heartstrings and dragged him along after her by them.

"W-wait," he blurted, catching her by the wrist. The mercenary turned back in a fan of red hair, locking him speechless for a moment with her verdant glance.

"Yes?" she questioned, considering his hand and then him with a flushed bemused, and slightly confused expression.

Wren blushed deeply, staring off into the bulkhead. "...I don't wanna face it alone again." he eventually ground out, wringing his wrist in nervousness.

Shana had to stiffle a sound that bubbled inside her, a feeling that at once elevated her and rendered her vulnerable. _"You always did like the men who knew how to drop the_ _jagyc and ask for help."_ Shana shook her head, shoving Wren along. He opened the door, stepping inside and grabbing a pillow off his mattress. He dropped it on the floor and Shana loosed a flood of laughter. She snatched the pillow back up, dropping onto the mattress. "Don't be ridiculous," she said.

Shana scooted over till she was up to the wall, pulling the blanket over her. Wren gingerly filled the other half of the bed. Wren felt her shift a little, till she was leaning up against his back, and soon she was snoring softly. The buzz in his head and rhe faint scent of the woman sleeping behind him ushered Wren off to sleep.


	7. Wren Eschlan, Of Byss

AN: Here we are friends. I have to say, the recent embrace by the community is heartening indeed. Gotta extend a big welcome to SomeTrandoshanWithASlugthrower and Bob Story Builder to our favorites users. Hope you're enjoying the ride. Cheers y'all!

* * *

Chapter 7: Wren Eschlan, Of Byss

"Wake up Wren." The curtains crawled open, casting rays of blue and green through the window. The lump in the bed shifted, turning away from the glow of the sun. Grasping hands seized his blanket, depriving Wren of warmth until a heavier source of heat climbed up on top of him. "Up, sleepy head! You've got people to see today, you can't let the day fly by."

Wren stirred in confusion, something like tihaar and shig filling his nose as he mumbled haltingly; "Sh-Shana?" He turned over from his belly, and the weight slid off him, regarding him with an entrancing gold-hazel stare framed by soft rusty red curls. She snorted, before crawling hand and foot back up against him, till the tips of their noses touched.

"Who's that?" She asked with an easy smirk. "Haven't even left home and you've already got a new squeeze? No, I'm Eri. Remember? Shana will have to wait till tomorrow, Mr. Stormtrooper."

Wren remembered, and then the dream had him. It was Eri. It was his bedroom, in his mother's appartment on Byss. It was 10 ABY. Wren was 16 again, and he kissed her like it. "It's nobody," he insisted after they parted. "Bad joke." Wren pulled her close, but she protested when she had the breath.

"Mmm. Move it," she said, pushing him down to the pillow before rolling off him. "Fresher. It's already 9:22, and you gotta meet Master Hurgin before he gets tired." Eri shoved Wren out of the bed, lounging in the covers and absorbing Wren's leftover body heat as she watched and chewed her lip while he rummaged about for clean clothes. He left the refresher and dressed, and the two youths left the bedroom.

"G'morning kiddo." Wren saw her, and for just a moment perceived the dream for what it was; this was how she always appeared, in her chair at the kitchen table, listening to the morning broadcast, sipping her caf. Wren couldn't help but smile. He didn't care that it was a dream, and in not caring lost the awareness of it.

"Hey mom," he said, crossing the room to hug his mother tight.

"Hope you don't mind I let Eri in," She responded. She flashed a grin to Wren's copper haired sweetheart that reeked of conspiracy. "She was always a better motivator than I was, so it just seemed like the natural move."

Any other day, Wren would've been mortified by a secret conference between mother and girlfriend, but seeing that he'd be half way across the galaxy in a mere 24 hours, Wren could only view it as inevitable. He wasn't gonna be around to keep the two halfs of his world from colliding anymore. "Glad to see you two are getting along," he said, smiling over mom's shoulder at Eri.

"And why wouldn't we?" Eri asked. "Delia is a class act."

"You've got a real nice girl here at home," Delia said. "Don't go doing anything while you're away that'll ruin that, right?" While Eri beamed, Wren accepted another hug and a kiss on the forehead. "You'd best get going, Wren. But don't forget, dinner at Merka's Chopping Block; your friends, your father, and half the building is going to be there."

They exchanged one more round of goodmornings and goodbyes, before the two young Byssians stepped out into the midday sun. Eri sighed, running a hand through her copper tresses. "Emperor, aren't you going to miss this? Turning your face into that sun? You know, I can feel in my heart that I don't come from a place that looks like this, but I don't love it any less."

"You always did," Wren said. They stepped out into the bustle, cutting through the crowds to a repulsortram. "I could never really escape that feeling. And always felt the need to."

This was Byss. It could've been the mottled blue-green sun, or the days 25% longer than the Human circadian rhythm, or the added ambient radiation from the insane stellar density of the Deep Core. But the strangeness of the planet was inescapable, permeating everything touched by the ghostly shine. Looking out the window was staring into a dream for Wren. Gazing at the open sky was one of the most disorienting things Wren knew.

The tram came to their stop; the kids hopped off, taking the stairs down to street level and walking a few blocks before ducking into a building marked 'Hurgin Self Defense Academy'. As Eri posted up on the low fence separating the entrance area and office from the training area, Wren kicked off his shoes and stepped out onto the mat. He took in the gym for what would be the last time; an open area covered in grappling mats dominated the right side of the gym. To the left were rows of striking bags, and a ring and cage sitting next to each other beyond that, up against the far left wall. In the middle of the mat stood seven Humans, four males and three females. Six young, one one old. Eri felt her heart jump up a touch faster as Wren made his way into the cup of the semi-circle.

"Master Hurgin," Wren said respectfully. The wizened, grizzled old man at the center of the half-circle smiled in a way that oozed exhaustion. From his face he seemed venerable, but past his training shorts and tight compression shirt, his body was hardened, gnarled and fit from decades of diligent, daily training.

"Wren, my boy." Master Hurgin clapped a hand to Wren's shoulder, messing up his hair and hugging him tight. "So glad you could make it." Wren opened his mouth to speak, but Hurgin turned away and began adressing his compatriots. "My honored peers," he said, in a very different voice. "We stand to fulfill the highest duty of fighting masters, as our disciple leaves for war. Who shall shed his blood here, that none shall spill from our disciple upon the field of battle?"

All six of his peers shouted in unison; "I!"

"Wren Eschlan, of Byss," the master continued. "I, Atmos Hurgin, of Anaxes, offer you challenge. Enter this crucible as a student, and leave it as a warrior in our eyes, that the grace of our masters shall follow you and your comrades."

One man stepped forward, the others retreating to the sides of the room. He was just a few inches taller than Wren, of tan skin with brown hair shaved close to the sides of his head, the front, top, and back being worn in a bun. He held out his wrapped hands, uttering; "Huja Texual, of Haruun Kal. Only arm strikes." He dropped into a fighting stance, hands tight on the chin, elbows in. Eri was at Wren's side then, pressing a pair of wraps into his hands.

"To first fall!" Master Hurgin shouted, as Wren tied the binds tight and true, so that they'd help hold the bones of his fists in place.

The two circled each other, stalking left and right. Wren fired a probing jab, testing the waters, but Huja parried it aside and immediately blitzed hard, forcing Wren back with a flurry of fast, powerful straight and hooking punches. Wren defended well, first with head movement and static blocks. Eventually the younger fighter found his rhythm and began attacking the weapons, using the hard bones of his forearms to intercept punches and wear out Huja's muscles with repeated impacts.

Seeing that an easy win wasn't for the taking, Huja changed tempo. Seeing an opportunity to take the offensive, Wren surged forward, firing a jab and cross high as he stepped out and angled a hook in towards Huja's body. The punch landed harmless, however, as Huja twisted to catch it on his curled arm, firing an uppercut with the same hand that caught Wren right under the chin.

The departing cadet staggered back, struggling to keep his feet, and Huja maintained pressure. Wren barely leaned out of the way of a thunderous hook primed to take his head off, covering up to guard a flurry of blows. Eri winced as Huja laid on the pain and Wren did his best to survive.

Wren could feel Huja's fists falls on his arms. That was the key to escaping the turtled up passive guard with effective offense. You couldn't see enough to put together a counterattack; Wren found his moment by telling the punch based on how it hit his guard. Timing with a hook, Wren lashed out, catching the punch on one arm and inserting the other to strike Huja's jaw with a backhand. And here was what justified Hurgin's brutal test; moments of pure mastery, Wren's inexplicable nack, glimpses of a fighting savant.

Wren snapped his arm back, passing Huja's captured arm over his head to the other side to bury a hook into Huja's ribs. That one hurt, and Huja couldn't resist the strength-sapping, breath stealing power of a direct hit to the liver. Wren slotted the uppercut between Huja's guard, knocking his head into place so Wren could spin, smashing Huja behind the ear with all the weight of his body.

As one body fell, the next stepped forward, while the others dragged the unconscious Huja to the side. "Asiya Hemari, of Loronar," the fair skinned, dark haired woman said. She settled into a spread guard, rear hand high by the jaw, front hand low and a little long. "All strikes."

"To first fall!" Master Hurgin called again, and like Huja, Asiya came in looking for a kill shot.

Wren shot his hand low to parry as Asiya launched a side kick at his belly. He found himself behind Asiya, but had no chance to capitalize as she fired her spinning back kick, this time high for his jaw. Wren bent desperately to avoid it, planting his hand as he leaned all the way back. Asiya had no issues capitalizing, leaping up and throwing an axe kick that absolutely would have dropped Wren to the ground, had he not desperately rolled hand by hand to the side, before flexing backwards and cartwheeling away from Asiya's low spinning sweep. The striking master stiffled a growl; this was what it was to fight Wren, a never ending frustration. Even as a novice, he had stunned with ingenious, near-miraculous escapes.

They stalked, probed, stalked, probed again, and finally traded; Asiya fired three alternating straight punches, before launching a straight kick for Wren's groin. The cadet parried, kicking Asiya's leg aside before it could strike his genitals and lashing out sideways. It staggered Asiya at her belly, but not enough to keep her from slipping low and to the side when Wren pressed in with a leaping punch. As Wren landed, Asiya thumped his ribs once with one folded elbow, and his kidney with the other. Wren spun with the backhand, Asiya ducking it, and then they were back to squared at close range.

Asiya kicked low at Wren's knee, but he shifted his stance to protect his joint, and their forearms clashed together as both tried to smash the other at point blank. Asiya threw a knee, but Wren slammed it away from his gut with the point of his elbow, and drove both his fists into her, striking her bladder and solar plexus. She staggered again, breathless and unable to defend as Wren ran her down. He lunged, jabbing high till she took the bait, allowing a 2-1 to land on her belly and ribs. Riding and adding to his forward momentum, Wren drove a leaping knee into Asiya's chin. Wren landed, faked a mid-height side kick to draw the stunned woman's hands low, and then threw a spinning hook kick that landed ball of the heel straight to the temple, spinning Asiya to the ground.

Eri watched, and Wren panted lightly. He knew what this was coming in. Eri had told him what was happening. They were here to provide the closest safe equivalent to war possible. His training would be easier for having already driven himself to his limit and beyond, as they'd done for so many who'd left Byss to serve the Emperor reborn. Master Hurgin watched, his face inscrutable, as another of the males stepped forward. He was Wren's height, but much heavier set, with skin an earthen brown and his hair shaved off outright. "Fang Yithitis, of Tatooine," he intoned. "Grappling only."

Wren grimaced; of all the instructors, Fang was the worst matchup, being much heavier than Wren, but no taller than him, and thus no easier to attack at the legs. But Master Hurgin shouted; "To first submission," and like that Fang was on him, rushing in to wrap with Wren.

The young Byssian backpedaled furiously, before ducking under Fang's arm. He pivoted around his larger foe, scooping up Fang's leg and driving into him from the blindside. Yet before he could block the remaining leg or try to lift, Fang turned to face forward and hooked his arms under Wren's, prying the smaller man off the leg before making his own low shot.

Wren sprawled back, but Fang changed the angle, blocking Wren's knee from escaping and bearing him down to the matt. From the corner of his eye, Wren could see Eri's face contort before Fang settled in and the ground fight began.

Fang scrambled down on top of Wren, staying close in a scarf hold and focusing his weight into the smaller man's chest. They fought hands then, as Fang began attempting to isolate and immobilize one of Wren's limbs. With his arms occupied in defending themselves, Wren used his legs, crunching himself together to hook the pit of his knee over Fang's face. Clamping down on Fang's arm, Wren used his whole body to pry the larger man away, at the same time threatening the trapped limb. Fang quickly set his feet under him, and easily lifted Wren. The smaller man released his hold at the last minute, tumbling away before Fang could slam his head into the ground.

Fang leapt onto Wren, stuffing his head down before the Byss native could fully recover. Wren struggled desperately under his more powerful opponent. Several times Wren avoided Fangs attempts to either circle an arm around his throat to choke it, or to circle around to Wren's back and slam him down, before finally breaking Fang's grip by sitting out from under him. Wren spun further, himself seizing the belly to back posture that Fang had desired. And like that, Wren finagled his way into another upstart victory. He hooked his right arm under Fang's, and then wound it high to grip the back of Fang's head. Grasping the larger man by the waist with his legs, Wren grasped the collar of Fang's shirt with his free hand and strangled Fang with it until he slapped his hand on the matt.

Wren's chest heaved as Fang picked himself up and moved to stand with the rest of the Hurgin academy instructors who'd been bested. He stayed down on his knees as the last male stepped forward and announced himself. "Hurrace Tar-solo, of Corellia. All striking and grappling."

Wren picked himself up in anticipation of Master Hurgin's proclamation. "To submission or incapacitation!" He shouted. Wren's adrenaline edged just a touch higher. Eri bit her lip to save her tongue from speaking. That was new. It wasn't how the gauntlet had gone for all the other students who'd left in Emperor Palpatine's service. They'd gotten a fight to submission, first fall to stand up striking, or three seconds of unanswered strikes at any time. It was a reflection of what Atmos had been telling her all this time. That this one was different.

Hurrace came on, pressing the exhausted cadet as hard as the others had, immediately striking with a leaping knee that brought him into range. It didn't get past Wren's doubled low guard, but the followup elbow did, cracking across Wren's jaw. Hurrace pulled Wren into his grasp, firing successive knees into Wren's gut. One landed flush, and Wren gasped for air as he blocked the rest on his two forearms. The Corellian snapped Wren down to his hands and knees by tugging hard on the back of his head, and continued to strike with his knees, hammering the top of Wren's head till blood began to run from his scalp. But Wren felt an opportunity, timed it and executed. He sat out hard, like he did against Fang, but with one slight alteration.

He took Hurrace's arm with him; one moment he was eating knees, helpless. The next, he was sitting out, with all his weight pressing Hurrace face down into the floor with the other fighter's arm seized in Wren's lap. Wren twisted hard, and with a cry of pain and frustration, Tar-solo tapped early. Wren pivoted to loosen the hold, falling to the floor gasping for breath while Hurrace carried himself off. Eri came up beside him then, helping him to seated. Once she got him standing, she helped undo his bloodsoaked wraps, before pressing a dagger into his hand. There were no words shared between them, only a look that drilled into Wren's heart how much this hurt her to watch. She'd demanded that nobody else could second him in this, but Wren wondered if it would've hurt her less to just come see him when it was done.

One of the two remaining instructors stepped forward. She looked much like Huja, with light brown skin and dark hair bobbed short. She too bore a dagger, identical to Wren's; six inches of blade, five inches of hilt, two symmetrical edges, and an upturned guard. "Amia Texual, of Haruun Kal. Knife fighting." Amia stood square, arms at her sides. All other eyes fell on the master.

"To third blood!"

"What?!" Eri nearly leapt over the fence and out into the training area. "That's insane, are you out of your...-"

"Silence!" Master Hurgin roared. "To third blood!"

Amia rushed forward; she wielded her weapon deceptively, always moving about, flowing through movement to disguise her intentions, until she came to range and thrusted low. Wren blocked, once and twice, but the third low stab was feinted, becoming an eye-height cut that Wren barely parried, and Amia angled away, slicing his wrist and up the palm of his off hand. Pain flared and blood began flowing, but Wren couldn't lick his wound in any way, as Amia stayed on him. They clashed, hands and blades fluttering left and right, every contact and movement a dangerous chess move made at lightning speed. But then Amia played another feint, and faked Wren's guard too high as she plunged the point of her knife into Wren's thigh. He cried out in pain, and Eri nearly did the same. But he struggled on, wrapping Amia's wrist in his bleeding hand, preventing her from tearing open his thigh completely.

Then Wren returned the favor; as Amia shot her hand to peel away Wren's grip, Wren intercepted it's course, flipping his blade to point down and skewering Amia through her reaching palm. Using the entry as a point of control, Wren forced Amia's arms together, sticking hand to forearm and pulling both away from the knife still embedded in his thigh. Wren butted with his head then, before wrenching his knife with one hand and sweeping Amia's arms with the other. As she passed him, Wren pivoted around, burying the knife once more, this time in her side to finish the fight.

Wren staggered. Eri rushed in to catch him, while Huja and Asiya did the same for Amia. Eri looked at Atmos with tearful eyes. "Stop this," she begged. "Father, please."

Wren could see Hurgin's resolve falter, if for just a moment. But then he shook his head. "Do your duty as his second," he ordered. "And soon it will be done."

Eri scowled, but obeyed. She pressed into Wren's hands a two-handed sword of medium length. "I'm sorry," she whispered, as the last instructor stepped forward.

"Jerata Texual, of Haruun Kal. Swordsmanship," she said, a mirror image of her sister. Then the others faded to the sides of the room.

"To third blood!" Master Hurgin called, and Jerata rushed in.

Wren fought like he was dying, and who knew, maybe he was. That meant fighting smart, because every move he made burned oxygen out of his falling blood supply. Jerata thrusted low, and Wren smacked it aside. She stabbed high, and he parried again, but not fast enough as Jerata's sword sliced his cheek. Wren moved closer, laying his blade on Jerata's arm; as she withdrew her scoring thrust, he scored a shallow cut of his own. Then they clashed again, cutting, partying, riposte finding no purchase. Jerata countered, and Wren's failed maneuver cost him a scraping cut in his bicep that Jerata tore with the tip of her blade. Yet as the sword fell from Wren's disabled arm, he caught it in his bleeding hand, swiping low and catching the inside of Jerata's knee. She dropped down, and at once they both lunged, running each other through in a draw.

The rest of the day was a blur, and the only memories Wren retained were two; Eri's face, worriedsick, comforting him as he was lifted bodily. The other was floating in blue, passing in and out of consciousness.

When Wren awoke, he was still surrounded in the blue, but now he was more lucid, and understood it for what it was. He could feel the thick bacta flowing into his wounds, binding with his tissues as they formed, accelerating every phase of the process. He could _feel_ himself knitting together. Eventually that strange feeling ceased, and the fluid was drained from the tube, leaving him sitting upon the floor of the capsule. He now recognized one of the academy's back rooms, with a flustered but relieved Eri standing next to Master Hurgin, who looked very pleased.

"When I took this challenge from my master, before the Clone Wars, I hardly made it to the free fighting phase. My knife instructor cut me to ribbons. But to make it all the way to the sword duel, and draw? Unheard of. Simply unheard of." Wren could only beam as he dried and dressed himself, marveling at mortal wounds inflicted by mid morning and healed before midnight. "I wish you well, Wren. And I dearly hope I will see you again."

Wren and Eri left the academy, stepping out into Byss' long twilight hours, where the eerie blue-green sunlight mixed with the crowded, star-strewn skies. They traveled up three levels, before hoping a tram. As they flew across the city, Wren was finally able to look skyward, and sighted the Emperor's Palace. That bulbous form of crimson metal atop a narrow spire seemed more intimidating now than it ever had before. Something about it seemed to focus the strangeness of the place. Only with the sun hanging low did Wren dare to gaze at it; doing so with that alien sun up high was a highly effective regurgitant measure.

The teens hopped off the tram, ducking into a dimly lit resturaunt that immediately roared with activity. Wren was sat at the head of a long table, with Eri to his left and someone he was truly thrilled to see on his right. "Ahhhhh, Wren, my boy, my little soldier!" Berm Eschlan looked very much like his son; a bit taller, a little plumper, and much older in the lines of his face, but the steely eyes, the messy brown hair, and the boyish features were all there. "Waitress! A beer and a whiskey for my boy, before he goes off to fight for us!" Wren sighted his mother, near by, rolling her eyes but saying nothing. Menus were brought out and passed down a table seated with practically all of Wren's friend and family. Even his instructors from the Hurgin Academy were there, save Master Hurgin himself, as he rarely had enough energy to stay awake this late, let alone party onwards. Berm urged his son to purchase the biggest, choicest cut of meat printed on the booklet of flimsy.

The party raged until Wren could stay out no longer; tomorrow, he would board a Sentinel-class landing craft, bright, early, and bound for the Stormtrooper Academy of Carida. But tonight, the four stumbled into Delia's flat; as Berm and Delia convened on the couch with wine, Wren said goodnight before Eri shoved him down the hall and into his bedroom. They stripped down, tucked in, and spent at least 12 of the 18 hours left till Wren's departure in close, tender silence.

* * *

Wren woke, and he was warmer than he should have been not ten meters from the cold grip of space. He recognized the body wrapped in his hands, but was also disturbed by it. Close, but not nearly close enough. This woman was a touch shorter, a touch wider at the hips, a bit fuller at the chest, harder and more muscular than the girl he bedded with.

"...Eri?" he questioned, opening his eyes to a scalp full of red hair, brighter than he remembered. She was not awake to respond, but stirred, settling into his arms, pressing languidly back against him. Then the woman realized where she was, starting up and turning to face Wren with green eyes rather than hazel.

"You alright?" She questioned sleepily. "You dreamed of Velabri again, didn't you?" Her forested gaze studied him intently, cheeks flushed, but if they hadn't been holding each other, Wren would be thought it were any other conversatiom, such was her expression. No sign in any direction whether she had been offended by Wren's unwitting advances, whether she enjoyed them, or if she even cared at all. All Wren knew was that she hadn't hit him for it, at least not yet.

Wren shook his head. "Byss," he said quietly, and Shana nodded once, turning back over. Wren didn't know how to touch her, not remembering turning to grasp her in the night. But she settled back against him, and he laid his arm on the curve of her waist. Shana accepted this without a sound, catching his hand and entwining their fingers.

They lay until a familiar voice called from the wall. "Rise and shine, kids," SENA said. "We're just about there."


	8. Part Of The Circle

AN: Hey there ladies and germs. A happy New Year to you all, here's a present for the winter holiday of your preference. In this chapter we take yet another step on the road to answers, and bring aboard our party's last core member. Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Chapter 8: Part of the Circle

They fell from hyperspace, crossing the line between real and elsewhere, and immediately the music began pumping through the communication systems; thumping rhythms and sharp distorted strings with layered harmonies. Shana winced just a touch, and Wren rolled his eyes. Sure enough, it was coming through on almost every frequency.

"That's Fink," he said with a laugh. "A light year a minute, every minute."

The nebula stretched out before them, spanning light years in every direction. Deep within, swaddled in great billowing clouds of gaseous chemistry, newborn stars burned bright and pure, girdled with clouds of pre-planetary matter, gathering slower than any could perceive. As Wren guided the Lady in, a durasteel dart parting the gas and dust, what began as a rough speck shrouded in the nebula began to grow, until it loomed before them, filling the canopy windows.

They passed through a perimeter of massive defense stations first. They were around 200 meters wide and 500 long, with the look of flanged mace heads. Each bristled with weapons, thick grids of missile tubes along the flanges and clusters of oversized cannons between them; they rotated menacingly as the Lady passed, though Shana privately wondered how much of a threat they posed to a ship of the Lady's pedigree. Shana may not have known much about starships, their operation and their upkeep, but she had an appreciation for their capabilities as a riflewoman and jet trooper. The Hasty Lady was the sort of ship jetpack infantry dreamed of riding into a combat zone. A great big dreadnought might have packed more destructive capability, but true atmospheric flight lent a personal touch that couldn't be replicated from orbit.

Shana considered Wren for a moment. Out in the open, under a planetary atmosphere, he had the demeanor and bearing of something fierce and cornered. But within these bulkheads he was different; tucked away frow the world in his burrow, Wren was not the guarded fortress of unassailable tension he presented in public. She realized then that while she viewed the vessel as a sword of destruction, Wren's view of it was less lofty. This ship was his security blanket. It was no wonder he has been so adamant on this layover. She hadn't realized how much he felt the empty space in the Lady's magazines.

Within the defense perimeter was Fink's Starship Repair. Thirteen great egg shaped structures drifted in a loose cluster, each of the old Imperial torpedo spheres painted garishly with cartoonish beasts, historical persons, and starships. From twelve of them extended long latices of scaffolding. Ships coming and going parked in an asigned lane, and scaffolds deployed from the sphere to surround the vessel and deploy manipulator arms to render repairs and maintainance. A motley of vessels were connected to the webs of repair scaffolding.

There was a sizable Hutt fleet, lumpen, ugly vessels painted in septic shades of orange and brown; long lines of Kossak-class frigates lay docked alongside four Ajuur-class heavy cruisers and one massive and ancient Azalus-class dreadnought. There were also several mercenary groups of various sizes and compositions. One was in the process of docking, a school of Clone War surplus Arquentis and Consular-class cruisers clustered around a pair of Inexpungable-class command ships that dated back Mandalorian wars, spaceframes with 4,000 years in service. Another sizable force was composed of mostly ubiquitous craft, Corellian gunships, Marauder-class corvettes, Carrack-class light cruisers, but it was centered around a SoroSuub Bulwark-class battlecruiser that dwarfed the repair sphere servicing it. There was even a small New Republic battlegroup docked in an isolated section of the facility, where pairs of starfighters could patrol around to keep the riff-raff clear of the MC90 and its entourage of assault frigates, Corellian corvettes, and MC40a cruisers. In a similarly isolated corner of the facility was a Hapan Battle Dragon, guarded tightly by fighter screens with it's fivesome of Nova-class 'battlecruisers' alongside it, fearsome vessels despite not qualifying as battlecruisers in any commonly held classification system.

Throughout were the flotsam of the space ways; a haggard tapestry of common and exotic spacecraft, from bulk freighters mundane to the point of anonymity, to rare jewels of engineering like a Delta-7 Aethersprite, a J-type Nabooan starskiff, and several luxury yachts of assorted make and model.

The comm system garbled and distorted as SENA paired it to the traffic control signal, and Wren steered the Lady along her track, projecting a path onto the HUD that would lead them to their assigned docking fixture through the storm of activity. They pulled in alongside the center-most sphere, adorned with huge murals of gamehalls, resturaunts, and a grinning cartoon child with a drumstick of cooked avian in one hand and a hydrospanner in the other. Wren guided the Lady in through a an atmosphere containment field. Toiling within were four Verpine technicians, directing the small horde of repair droids as they accepted the arriving craft. As the Hasty Lady deployed landing struts and dropped ramp, the corridor door slid open, in walking a slight, gangly youth, barely taller than compact Shana. He wore his violently blond hair back behind his head, a red patterned bandana tied over it, his bangs framing his face. His eyes were a vivid purple Shana had never seen on a human before, and he wore a heavy mechanic's jumpsuit, opened halfway and tied about his waist at the moment, with boots, gloves, and a white undershirt. The boy cast a wave from the wall, and Wren returned it through the transparisteel with an easy, relaxed grin.

Seeing that sort of expression on his face, without an edge of rage, fear, or bloodlust, did strange, frustrating things to Shana's brain and gut. This was becoming more than just an extension of her weakness for wounded warriors, already a known and familiar quantiry. This trip had been a jaunt through a strange man's life, and Shana could only see that she'd yet to ply the depths. Wren was the ultimate puzzle. He was all duality; fierce pride and deep shame, unconditional altruism and pragmatic opportunism, a burning lust for life and an exhausting, anxious depression, a brash, strident confidence and skittish, bashful shyness.

The young human met them at the bottom of the crew ramp; Wren went in for a hug but recieved a kick in the shin instead. "What, I get you to Class .75 and you stop in half as often? Bantha fodder! I should space you for it." Wren dodged another shin kick, but the look on his face was hardly combative. "And I'll bet you've been mistreating my ship left and right. Force, look at that hull. Carbon scouring, microimpactive pitting, gotta be every sort of nebulaic chemical reaction going on there. A year and a half's worth of it, you utter savage."

"Nice to see you too," Wren sarcased with a sheepish grin. "I'm great Fink, never been better. Thanks for asking!"

Little Fink roared with laughter, moving past Wren to Hakyo, thumping the giant in the tummy once. "I'm sure that's all this one, isn't it? Been taking care of our buddy? Making sure he doesn't embalm himself?"

Hakyo emitted a low chortle. "I'm sure you don't forget, it is always Wren who takes care of us in the end." Eschlan blushed deeply, casting his eyes about in sullen embarrassment, and Shana observed that mannerism with that all too familiar flutter in her throat. She beamed, and Wren sank further into his growing humiliation.

" _Wren'ika_ here has been doing an awful lot of that as of late," Shana teased. "You could almost call it heroic."

"I swear, if this goes on I'll just leave you all here," Wren grumbled, though his face spoke of jest under the embarrassment.

Fink laughed again, before sliding on through the group and into Shana's visor. "Shiny," he commented, rapping a loose fist against one shoulder plate. Shana's discomfort was overturned by curiosity when she observed Fink's eyes as they studied the metal intently. The vivid violet hue was outputting enough, but within those wide pools of color Shana viewed concentric rings, shifting and interlocking within the iris. "Top grade beskar, premium coatings, very nice." Fink gave her a once over, and whistled. "You can't help but make nice with dangerous people, Eschlan."

"Nice to meet you too," the Mando said with a shrug. "I'm Shana."

"Normally I would love to take a closer look at top of the line Mandalorian kit, but my masterpiece is right here. Only girl I'll ever need." Fink strode past them, setting a foot upon the lowered ramp. His voice took a very odd tone, distant from the abrasive but genial manner he had greeted them with. "You guys head on into the habitation levels; honestly, besides Hakyo you both look like you could drop from starvation any second. I'm gonna get set up here."

As Fink disappeared into the guts of the Hasty Lady, the captain, his crew and his charge proceeded deeper into the modified torpedo sphere. "You weren't kidding," Shana said with a puzzled look. " _Evaar haamyc._ Strange kid. Did you see how he looked at the ship? Thought he might break down and cry."

Wren chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "There's a bunch of things going on there," Wren eventually muttered, trying to keep a tight reign on personal subjects. "The Lady is Fink's baby first and foremost. There's stuff in there that's proprietary, stuff he's put a huge amount of research and experimentation into, stuff only he really understands. The kid is an artist whose medium happens to be starships. The Hasty Lady is one of his masterpieces, so he gets really protective of it."

Shana nodded, considering their frosty interaction in a new light. She wasn't just the new face playing sidekick to old friends; they were all intruders in the studio of a virtuoso. "And?"

Wren made a showy gesture, tapping his temple with the tips of his fingers. "Remember how I said he's raised by Verpines? Well, those implants he got for RF communication with the rest of the hive, the human brain was never designed to process those kinds of signals. And the implants themselves are much higher test than the Verpine organs they emulate. The result is that Fink gets huge amounts of junk signals that he has to filter through, at all times. When he eats, bathes, sleeps, all of it. He was catatonic for almost a year after the implantation, until he learned how to filter the data right."

"Hm." Cybernetic enhancement was well beyond Shana's expertise, but none of that sounded pleasant.

"It's not just the Lady," Wren continued, his face taking a witsful, knowing expression. "It's SENA too. She can do the kind of signal processing needed to produce an active jamming effect across Fink's entire receiving spectrum; a countersignal that blocks out the noise, like a good headset. She's had his heart stowed away in her storeage medium ever since they figured it out."

"Aww, so they're a couple then?"

"Nah," Wren said with a shake of his head. "SENA... Isn't set for relationships."

Shana turned to meet Wren's gaze, walking sideways down the corridor. Her grin was conspiracy and mirth. "But she does fancy him back. No?"

Wren stumbled over his words, eventually gesturing to Hakyo, who loosed a long string of grunts and barks. "SENA regards Fink very highly," his translator intoned. "And likely trusts him far more than she trusts Wren, to say nothing of you or I. But she is without form, and cannot approach the concept of romance as she is. SENA is highly sensitive of this topic, and it is not to be discussed in her presence."

Shana nodded, prying no further. "Do we really look that bad?" She wondered. "I mean, I'm starving. I can only assume you are too. But it was just a day, maybe. I've gone longer on less on the _kyrbej_." They passed through two pairs of double doors, and into a huge chamber, packed on one end with resturaunt seating and filled with gaming tables on the other end.

"Yeah, Mon Gazza has a way of doing that," he hollered over the din. "You wouldn't believe the growl I had going when I finally left."

A human wearing a casual uniform came up to the group and lead them to a booth table, and before long a parade of foodstuffs was arrayed before them, a bloody carcass for Hakyo and sizable, artfully arranged bowls of seafood layered over seasoned grain for Wren and Shana, and a roiling pot of stew between the three of them, loaded to brimming with meats, seafood, veg and noodles.

Their chatter and laughter rang out through the bustling amusement hall.

* * *

Fink sat crosslegged on the floor of the repair bay, alternating his vision between his datapad and the vessel before him. Reaching for his wristpad, he increased the output of the bay's degaussing modules. Rolling to his feet, he strode over to the ventral starboard composite beam, scooping a small case up off a rolling cart. Slipping his hand inside the case, he removed it, now wearing the sterile glove contained within. He used the glove to change a set of five focusing lenses, before returning the glove to its sterilizing case and closing the tributary ray assembly.

"Rearmor that, please," he delegated to a D99-X repair droid, directing it to replace the turret's armored cover. He did it verbally; the chamber was devoid of Verpine, it was just Fink and a few droids. The D99-X placed and secured the two halves of the armored cover, one on each side of the emitter and its traversal. Once secured, Fink pressed a key on his wristpad; the armored cover snapped shut and the turret recessed into the hull. "I'm going inside to flush out the tibana supply so we can refill the gas cells."

Fink marched up the ramp, winding his way through the halls of the YZ-775, into the rear engineering compartment. Hefting a canister of orange gas, he fixed it to the tibana storeage system, and began configuring a system flush.

"You did the composite beams in record time," SENA said from the wall. Fink hummed to himself.

"We've been getting a lot of them lately. Seems like they're back in style," he said, thumbing the additive control. The solvent gas cycled through the ship's tibana cells and the tubing that directed that tibana to the Hasty Lady's assorted energy weapons, scouring away residual sediment.

"We were into it before it was cool, then," SENA quipped. "How hipster."

Fink rolled his eyes, waiting and monitoring the tibana system console as the cleaning gas recollected in the canister that delivered it, now a darker shade for the tibana crud it collected from the Lady's innards. "Now then. R8-E3, take this to disposal, please," Fink said, handing the canister off to the white and bronze astromech. "Time for the main course."

Fink strode to the rear of the engineering section, fixing his fingers about the main console. With just a moment's hesitation, he ordered open the primary reactor chamber. A bulge sitting between the YZ's upper two drives, one a purist would note as an end user addition, gave way, layered armored hatches peeling back to reveal a path to the space within. The original reactor chamber had been converted into equipment to support The Hasty Lady's heart, Fink's true masterstroke. Though an impressive array, the Lady's arsenal was composed of conventional technogies. But stowed in the added compartment between the main engines was something unique and unparalleled. It was a hypermatter reactor, the smallest and most efficient of its kind, with a volume-to-output ratio rivaling that of the Death Stars. And only Fink knew how to service it.

The human augment strode back down the ramp, editing his dataslate, before stowing it on his belt and clambering up the side of the ship, back to the now exposed reactor core. He breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing his most treasured creation, dirty and worn but unharmed and fully operational. And with a little love, it would house a matter-energy reaction that would shame the death of any star with its intensity. Hypermatter physics was one of Fink's specialties, and the full extent of his mastery over it was a power Fink used with the utmost caution.

 _"How does it look, doctor?"_ SENA asked, a soft voice separating a soothing low hum; not silence, but nearer to it than the never ending buzz. Near enough to it to soothe the ache in his head he spent all his days ignoring.

 _"Oh, not so bad,"_ he cast back, switching visual filters and magnification settings. His wide violet eyes peered into the molecular structure of the reactor materials, ferreting out deposits of chemical buildup and testing the integrity of the various components. _"A couple new fuel injectors, new containment field relays, new pulse regulator, a clean reactor chamber and she'll be the brightest star in the sky again. A better question might be how does it feel?"_

 _"In here?"_ Within the Lady, in the droid bay, SENA pulsed and flared in her crystalline home, a matrix of energy contained within the endless facets of her rough cylinder of processed Corusca gem capped at each end with a durasteel-clad connective port, each line and seam within the material lighting up and then dimming like firing neurons. _"In here it's all fine. Not a single bit of storage loss, no chemical change in the substrate. It's what happens outside the Corusca that worries me these days."_

Fink nodded once, descending through the opening and into the reactor chamber. He set about removing worn components for replacement. _"The new girl. What's her deal?"_

" _She's pedestrian as far as I can tell. Bounty hunter, mercenary; a good one, but nothing sinister that I can find on the holonet. It's what she does to Wren that I can't jive with. You saw about Mon Gazza?"_

 _"Oh fek, that was you guys?!"_ Fink swore under his breath, with his real voice.

" _She convinced him to do it. Not that it wasn't on his to do list anyways, but timing, you know? We're supposed to be protecting this girl, she's making it more difficult than it needs to be, and he's helping her do it. I've never seen him so senseless. Not since the last one,"_ SENA continued.

Fink nodded, recalling Wren as he was upon purchasing the ship that would become the Hasty Lady. _"The one that convinced him to get off that rustball in the first place. The one that carried him off to paradise, patched his spirit back together, and then vanished into the night."_

 _"The very same. You can see the precedent for my concern, right? Wren is a natural warrior, in the cockpit and out of it, but his weakspot is that beat up heart of his. And this one has him in a bad way, for real."_

Fink chose his words carefully as he disconnected the spent pulse regulator, tossing it over his shoulder and out of the reactor chamber. The part colided with a WED-15 repair droid, which bleated and hooted in protest; thankfully it struck the somewhat durable tread cover of the spindly multiarmed machine, rather than the fragile and expensive photoreceptors. "Sorry!" He shouted, wincing hard as he returned to electronic communication. _"What was I about to say? Right. The Nabooan got Wren to the point where he could actually engage with you. Yeah, she disappeared without a trace, but in the end she left him in a better state than she found him."_

 _"That doesn't come even with what it did to him when she split. Or the things he got into because of it."_ There was no venom or heat in SENA's tone, it was just a statement of well-discussed fact.

 _"No, it doesn't. But the point is that Wren finds his own way. We all follow him, to some degree. Some less, some more, with change over time, but when he calls, we answer,; no matter the time or distance, because we all trust that vision that guides him along."_ Fink locked the last new component in place, heading into his final visual inspection of the reactor. _"If Wren thinks this Shana has a place as a part of the circle, it's likely for good reason."_

 _"Yeah. I know. I just can't help but worry. Things were finally getting back to stable."_

The chatter of voices broke the silence of the nearly vacant bay as the door slid open, allowing Wren, Shana, and Hakyo to spill inside. Fink climbed his way out of the hypermatter reactor, closing it with a few keys on his wristpad, before vaulting down to the floor.

"Maintainence and repair are just about done," the young engineer reported. "I wanna talk to you about some additions I've cooked up. I've got an overhauled sensor array that just needs to be installed so we can work out an interference-free setup. Then there's the aft-mounted triple-drum launcher and armor package we talked about last you were here, those are all ready to go, just plug and play."

Wren whistled, impressed, but before anyone could comment further, a blaring alarm sounded. _"SENA, I need a clear signal,"_ Fink casted, and immediately the voices of his Verpine colleagues leapt into his mind. "There's been an unauthorized access. Three levels up on the other side of the sphere, rolling deep and armed up to to the antennae. I'm still trying to figure out how they got past the defense grid, I've got a couple of hunches. But I can't get in contact with the bridge, and that's a whole new level of worrying."

Fink pressed a button on his wristpad, projecting a hologram of a camera feed. Long, six-legged insectoids came around the corner at the end of the corridor, exchanging fire with a team of Verpine security officers. Similar scenes played out across a series of other camera feeds, and from looks were worn all around, but none grimmer than Shana's. "Bartokk," she spat like a curse, her right hand straying towards her beskad. "Hive-minded assassin species, vicious, ruthless, and they're wearing full armor suits, from the look of it. _Osi'kyr_!"

"I'm pretty sure I've got it," Fink said. "Only way they got this deep into the complex undetected is with a cloaking device, stygium or hybridium based. That explains why we can't figure the bay they entered from. Their transport is out there, cloaked, waiting till they gain control of the station. If they haven't already."

"They're not here for the station," Wren commented. He jerked his head in Shana's direction. "They're here for her, courtesy of some very pissed off 3rd parties. We've been dodging their mercenary hires since Naruku III."

Fink nodded in affirmation. "Well either way, we've got two problems. Containing the boarding parties here on the repair levels, and making contact with the bridge to set up some of our more exotic sensor systems so we can find their ship."

"I'm engaging the intruders," Shana blurted, green eyes narrow with rage. "I've waited long enough to meet these creatures again. I've business to settle with these _hut'uune_." She jogged up the ramp, set on a few extra things from her bag on the Lady.

Hakyo drew his N'gant-Zarvel, beating his chest. "I will assist you," the brute insisted, turning to Fink. "But if this is as pitched a battle as it seems it will be, I will require another weapon. Something big, preferably."

The shipwright flashed a cheeky grin. "I've got something I know you'll like," he responded, jogging off out the door with Hakyo in tow.

 _"You'll need my help to get the sensors set up timely,"_ SENA said through Wren's headset, prompting him to board the Lady as well

The alarm rang on as the five scrambled to prepare for battle.


	9. Drag Them To Their Graves

AN: Hello everybody, sorry it's taken so long for this to reach y'all. Things IRL got a little hectic, but I'm pleased to have all that locked down well enough to put more time into writing. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 9:

Drag Them To Their Graves

The grating sound of metal on metal echoed through the silent, empty halls of the Hasty Lady; the great iron beast slept deeply, showing no sign of motive potential. Dead metal. Shana scraped harder, passing the small slate of Quadanium-Corusca durasteel along the lengths of three darkly colored _beskar_ blades.

First her nimble and deadly _bes'kad_ , single-edged and curved forward ever so slightly. It was a _geba'kad_ to be precise, as bes'kad was a general term for a wide variety of _beskar_ -forged sword designs popular among Mandalorians. _Geba'kade_ were infighting blades, the name an amalgamation of the words for close, combat, and swords. Some Mandalorian swords were designs passed down by the Taung. Others were adopted by and then popularized among the contemporary Mandalorian culture. The _geba'kad_ was of the former lineage.

Shana's heavy, cleaving _ori'kal_ knife and smaller _cabur'kal_ dagger were of the latter series of designs. The _ori'kal_ , thick as a thumb, long as a forearm, and sporting broad blade with a generous forward curve, was based upon a design learned from Dantooini mountain folk, and simply meant big knife. The _cabur'kal_ , or the sentry-removing knife, was originally an archeological find from the deepest levels of Coruscant, forged from primitive metals avalible in the ecuminopolis' pre-historic period, but painstakingly preserved with notes on it's history and use. Often considered by Mando'ade to be the ultimate light fighting knife, it's two unbroken edges and symmetrical spearpoint tip were designed with versatility and precision in mind, ideal as a concealed weapon, as an offhand companion to other one handed weapons, or for ambushing and dipatching lone enemies in relative silence.

These were not the ideal tools for this fight, or this enemy. Bartokk warriors were hardy, chitinous foes, their carapaces leaving seldom few gaps vulnerable to a blade. But Shana would carry them anyways; she would savor the deaths of these creatures. As they'd nearly savored hers. These blades were not like the Lady; disected on an operating table, not truly alive until restored to a working configuration. This metal was alive, the points and edges singing with unbroken purpose, extolling Shana to use them as designed, and bathe in the ichor of her hated foe.

Not by trauma but by choice, Shana relented to the call of memory, venturing into spaces she rarely could tread. The years whittled away under her mind's gaze, growing fuzzier and more distant until at least she returned to vividness, glowing fires, billowing smoke, and sky cracking impacts.

Her hair was ragged and tangled about her head. Her feet were bare, cuts on her soles, and her clothes were singed tatters. Bruises, scrapes, and burns covered nearly every inch of her. Shana cowered under the parked repulsorcraft, hidden away in a garage complex while her city exploded around her. Here and there were moments of silence, but the shots still howled in from orbit to smash buildings to rubble. Just not hers, not yet at least. But she silently supposed that instant immolation by the blocky vessels dipping into the atmosphere overhead would be preferable to whatever the roving bands of skittering horrors had in mind for her, jet black with two heads, one on each end, with vicious crimson eyes, glowing slices of uninterrupted color that pierced through the smoke and night.

Shana whimpered in fear as the clatter of hardened carapace limbs against the durracrete parking structure echoed off the walls. Their harsh hissing vocalizations echoed upward from below, gradually growing louder as the host occupied the upper landing pads.

They'd already torched everything she'd known in her short eight years. The orphanage, the factory with the angry foreman, the bitter old lady at the canteen lunch line, the stout 12 year old boy who looked so handsome swinging his impact hammer. The man who ran the food stall, who always gave her extra noodles for free after a long hard day of work. All dust in the wind, scattered by the roving deathsquads of arthropods, blasted apart by sickly green bolts and then incinerated in jets of burning raw plasma. The culling of the industrial colony of any signs of dissent had gone on for months, until the huge warships, all sharp edged rectangles powered by finned drive sections, settled in overhead, and the remains of the butchery were themselves scattered to the wind by devastating volleys of turbolaser fire.

"Inexcusable!" A thin whining voice split the insectile sounds of the Barrtok mercenaries. "Why not just take the skiff I had at the palace?"

"The skiff is a pleasure cruiser, sir, she can't even break atmosphere. We'd never escape successfully in such a vehicle."

Shana watched the robed crybaby pout. "It has such nice accommodations," he tuttered. "I so hate a rough shuttle ride on poor upholstery..."

Little Shana had to struggle not to laugh. Hell had come to roost on an already bleak existence, and this fop at the center of it was worried about hard seats hurting his soft rear. It was Shana's first encounter with that sort of grim irony. Even as she snickered, it hurt her heart to think of it.

"What, what is it? What are they doing?" The clattering noises shifted noticeably, and when the girl peeked, glowing Bartokk eyes stared back at her.

What came next what often difficult to remember. Despite having grown into a warrior of great prowess, it was unyieldingly difficult to pierce the veil of the confusion she had experienced that day. But there were some images that stood out and painted a basic picture for her.

She had been dragged from beneath the repulsorcraft by the rigid, slicing grasps of the chitinous claws of these fouls creatures. Held restrained, struck viciously when she dared resist. The fool and his lackey discussed what to do with her, and then the distant rumble came near. It shocked and deafened Shana, casting her to the floor as it rained from the sky in searing bursts of scarlet agitated matter. One of the huge battleships parted the grey smoke-laden sky with it's thick rectangular bow leading a winged and finned rear section, it's cannons and launchers chewing up the planet all around them, marking their position in the eye of a storm of destruction.

The moment the storm ended, the assault was upon them, two pairs of 40 meter long dropships shaped like huge seagoing creatures, studded with cannons facing forward and back, larger guns mounted upon their backs, and spewing missiles from clustered tubes at the cheeks and rotating launchers under protective shutters flanking the heavy dorsal turret. Shana dove for cover as the dropships fanned out, their four engines swiveling about to bring them into hovering patterns, circling the garage complex as the cannons mowed through the assassin hive. When the feeble resistance was fully crushed under the hail of bolts and warheads, three of the dropships touched down and disgorged infantry. They fanned out through the complex, carefully clearing every inch. These moments were clearer in Shana's mind, as these strange warriors systematically executed every one of the chittering carrapaced warriors. Their fearsome armor, their blank and wicked visors, and the stalking way they moved had scared her nearly as much as the Bartokks, but eventually they found her. Yet instead of pulling her out from under another vehicle, they simply called for their _alor_.

Shana saw a pair of boots. Then knees, and a pair of hands, and then a T glowing softly blue as this one bent down to peer under the speeder at her. " _Udesii, cyar'ika_..." he said, pulling off his helmet. The man underneath was weathered and scarred, but his eyes and smile were open, and his voice was calm. "Hey there. Can you hear me? Understand?"

Shana nodded once, still not daring to speak. She had seen people with sweet faces and cruel hearts before. This warrior simply smiled wider. "Good, good. You're not hurt, are you?" She shook her head, and he exclaimed; " _Jate'kara_! Good stars, little one! You're a very lucky girl. What's your name?"

She studied his face just a moment longer, tanned and marked and grinning like her friends did when work was hard but life had cheer and joy. "Shana," she said.

"It's good to meet you, Shana. I'm Sagen, and I'm glad to see you're still alive." He extended an open gauntlet. "The fighting is over now, so you can come out, okay?"

Shana shrank back, shaking her head, and for a moment Sagen looked crestfallen. But then a mischievous grin crossed his face. "Well, too bad I guess, me and the vode will have to eat all this field stew by ourselves, then."

He moved to leave, his subordinates snickering. Sure enough, before they could take ten strides, they could hear a small voice clear her throat. "D-did you say stew?" She asked timidly, peeking her soot-streaked face out from beneath the speeder. Sagen grinned, nodding his head.

"All that and more, a feast fit for kings," the old soldier promised, waving his hand to indicate the behemoth looming over the nearby city blocks. "Aboard my Keldabe-class over there."

"Then you'll take me away from here?" Hope sprang up out of the girl's broken expression, blunting Sagen's grin.

"You haven't a loved one here to worry for?" He asked, though he already knew the answer. Shana shook her head, and Sagen knelt back down next to her, offering his open gauntlet. "Then yes little one, I can take you from this place. You will live with me, my wife, and our sons, and we will raise you as one of our own; a daughter of Mandalore and a warrior without peer."

* * *

Slowly the memory faded, leaving Shana alone again, clutching tight the hilt of her _geba'kad_ , fighting back tears. She steeled herself, and then girded her body with armor and arms, an internal change complete as she lowered her buyce over her head, her soft and tender feelings buried within the armor of her psyche and consumed by the flames of war that burned within. Her DC-15A would remain on the Lady; instead she would bring a WESTAR-M5, so graciously supplied by Fink from one of his for sale weapons stores. The shorter profile would be handier in the cramped station corridors and doorways, and this particular rifle also sported an underbarrel blast cannon, offering a choice between conventional select fire and a scattergun pattern, perfect for pouring on pain at point blank or quickly saturating an area target at a distance.

The _Mando'ad_ left her room, striding down the hall and rapping her fist on the door opposite from hers. It slid open, revealing Wren leaning against the wall on the other side. He stood up straight upon seeing Shana enter, moving past her and beckoning wordlessly before leading his passenger down to the droid bay. Within, the spacer stepped past the whistling astromechs. and approached SENA's system access connection. Ever so carefully, Wren disengaged the cylinder of Corusca gemstone before slipping it into a hard framed clear case that hung from his belt at the small of his back. "Okay girl," he said with a teasing grin. "Wanna go for a walk?"

"You know I could doom us all, right? For all the different ways I hold your life in my hands, you just can't seem to stop needling me," SENA quipped back.

"Love you too, SENA," Wren said through easy chuckles. He made his way further fore, Shana following close behind, and the two disembarked from the Lady. Once they'd stepped off the ramp, the ship sealed itself per SENA's silent command. Wren and Shana progressed into the monitor bay attached to the Lady's berthing. Within, Fink was introducing Hakyo to a new toy.

It was a mammoth weapon, three systems in total; side by side, an LS-150 accelerated charged particle cannon and a Relby v10 micro-grenade launcher, and slung below them was a boxy, four-barreled FC-1 flechette launcher. These three implements of destruction were all tied to a single trigger via a selector switch, and fed by an equally huge ammunition drum that hung from Hakyo's waist. Wren was certain that the Abyssin was the only being he'd met who could handle such a weapon with anything approaching competence, and sure enough the brute hefted the thing with ease by its top-mounted stabilizing grip. "Eschlan, behold!" He barked. "My eye thirsts to see what this one is capable of. And the little engineer found another N'gant Zarvel for me as well."

Fink beamed. "I'm just happy that I finally found that monster a home. Got stuck with it after I siezed a fit-and-fly, could never find anyone who wanted the damn thing. It's just too big!"

The slight mechanic had a pair of holsters on his belt now, wearing a chest rig carrying magazines and a pair of dissipative plastoid trauma plates, and Shana recognized the rifle slung across his slender chest; a Verpine shatter-rifle, and a top of the line model at that, fitted with a short barrel and a low magnification CQB sight. Also hanging from his belt was a short wand capped with a small sphere of durasteel. Shana regarded Fink again; she hadn't marked the boy for a warrior, but he bore his arms with the ease of an experienced fighter.

"Alright," the youthful engineer said, his lackadaisical smile turned hardened and grim. "If we're all set, let's get this ball rolling. My people have evacuated the repair levels, and my security teams are doing well to contain the Bartokks in their occupied decks. But they've hunkered down real tight, and I don't wanna risk my people dislodging them alone. Not when we have help. We're going to cut through to the central transit hub; once we're there, Shana and Hakyo will help my security teams hunt down every one of these things, while me and Wren head up to the command level and activate the crystal gravfield trap sensor; the CGT will help us sniff out the cloaked assault ship that brought this pudu to our fine place of business. Then my defense stations will turn them into salvage."

They assembled at the doorway, first Wren and Hakyo to one side, then Shana and Fink on the other. "How's it look out there?" Wren asked. Fink stopped for a moment, peering into the wall as the mechanisms in his eyes rotated and interlocked.

"Clusterfekked," came the reply. "There's at least six of them. Trying to gain access, if I'm not mistaken."

"I can hear it," SENA said into their comm sets. "What the fosh _is_ that? Wren, these things are making _you_ look like a good slicer."

"Well let's give them a hand, everybody." Wren was all fire, viciously thrilled. He drew his S-5, sliding a red-tipped projectile striped with gray into the underbarrel launcher. "Fink? Hakyo?"

The huge Abyssin hefted his new weapon, standing before the doorway and leveling the oversized implement of destruction. He wore an extension in his comm headset that projected a targeting lenses over his lone eye. Fink punched his administrator code into the door control, hovering his hand over the opening button. Wren counted softly, and at the counts end Fink keyed the door open.

They gawked awkwardly for just a moment, before all seven moved at once, raising their bizarrely shapped blasters as one, but they were too late. With one pass Hakyo cut them down in a hail of deeply penetrating yellow bolts that punched holes straight through the Bartokk, their armor, and deeply into the metal of the bulkheads. He roared in joy as he did it, before ending the fusillade so Wren and Shana could enter the doorway, facing left and right in unison. Each saw more chitinous foes ambling down the curving circular corridor. Wren raised his pistol, firing the bottom barrel; his shot burst into a cloud of red hot metal fragments that ripped through the advancing Bartokk, maiming and remembering them in a storm of durasteel fragmentation, shattered carapace, and sickly ichor. Shana did the same, launching a micromissile from her wrist that leveled the front ranks of the charging insectoids.

"Fink, fill my position," she said in a short and curt tone, raw info transfer with no character or inflection. The young mechanic pulled up behind his new Mandalorian comerade, slapping her on the shoulder plate thrice. When Shana pulled back into the cover of the doorway, Fink seamlessly placed his shatter-rifle along the line of fire Shana had vacated. As Wren and Fink laid down well disciplined volleys of emerald blaster bolts and magnetically propelled metallic rounds, Shana drew one one of her DC-17S pistols. Sure and methodical, she pointed the early model GAR pistol and fired, obliterating the gleaming red eyes of the fallen Bartokk warriors one set at a time.

Wren and Fink both flinched at the unexpected shots within their position, and for a blood chilling moment the weight of shots coming their way began to increase, before Hakyo leaned out to Send a thick burst down each hallway, assisting Wren and Fink in seizing control of the firefight again. Wren signaled Hakyo to take his place, casting his attention back to his chartering passenger. "What the hell?" He demanded.

Shana transferred Wren's attention to the dismembered Bartokk limbs, and the way they still twitched. "Their hive telepathy extends to their distributed nervous systems," she explained. "Until you destroy the primary brain, the limbs will fight on."

This seemed to blunt Wren's outrage at the poor communication, but only just so. "Say something _first_ next time," he hissed, before moving back into a firing position, crouched low behind Hakyo and peering out around his bulk.

"My people want us going this way!" Fink called out, indicating the leftward passage. "I can move up, cover me!"

As Hakyo held down the other side of the fight with a steady spray of ACP shots and an occasional micro-grenade, Shana leveled her new WESTAR and Wren aimed his S-5 past her from a low crouch. Together they filled the air with green particle bolts and blue plasma pulses, forcing the Bartokk back into cover. Firing as he moved, Fink dashed out, ahead, and into a doorway further up the hallway. Fink quickly opened it, and after he cleared the chamber within, the team shifted ahead to join him. They fought this way through several different doorways, executing the creatures whenever possible, until Fink called out as they engaged yet another knot of Bartokk warriors.

"Friendly fire!" He shouted, and the gang noticed that a few of the Bartokk fell before any of the four had fired their weapons. The rest fell slowly as the four warriors and their new allies dispatched them with much more care.

After the last Bartokk fell, Fink slung his rifle low, his posture significantly more relaxed. From further down the hallway, slender insectoids with green carapaces and wearing grey security uniforms left cover. Most advanced past the crew to secure their rears, but one holstered their pistol and greeted Fink with an open hand.

"Guys, this is Tzan, my security chief," Fink explained. "How's it look?"

"Good and bad news, Fink," Tzan said. "My personnel have successful contained the intrusion within the repair and hospitality sections. The engineering sections are free of the enemy, and we receive no reports of intruders in the other spheres. In addition, we have confirmed the status of the command deck." Even on the alien face, distress was obvious. "It was completely destroyed. Everyone on the bridge at the time of the attack perished."

Fink spat a long string of obscenities, gripping his rifle tight till his wrists shook. "Time to put these things out of our misery," he said through gnashed teeth. "Me and Wren are going up to the command deck so we can toast their transport. The Mando and the big guy will help your people wipe out these sorry bastards."

The group split with little fanfare, Shana and Hakyo shifting to follow Tzan's lead. Wren grabbed Hakyo for just a moment, speaking under his voice. He jerked his head in Shana's direction. "Something about these things is getting under the armor," he said, and the look on Hakyo was one Wren recognized as understanding. "Watch her, Hak. Watch her good."

Wren and Fink boarded a turbolift, and then the door slid shut. Wren studied Fink intently as he smouldered in place, reloading his shatter-rifle. "Vx'un was on duty," he blurted suddenly.

"Vx'un," Wren said to himself, silently damning the Verpine naming culture. "He was assigned to your recovery after the implantation."

"We'd been together from the start. The bug practically raised me. I wouldn't know a single thing if it weren't for them. They have a genetic defect, can't take on sex like other Verpines. Well, had. Stuck in sexless form, no way to pass on the hive's knowledge. Except for me. Took me in when I had nothing, nobody. Taught me to think, to see and hear and build. It's not perfect but I could never want something else. Certainly not a life as a stow away, and then probably a slave."

Wren saw the tears forming in the corners of his eerie cybernetic eyes. Part of him was surprised, having thought Fink didn't have working tearducts. He rested his hand on the young man's shoulder. "They're not getting away with this," the spacer promised. "It's personal now; we'll hunt down the fekking mook who had the bright idea to spring this on us. Drag them to their graves by their damn choobies."

The turbolift door slid open, and the smell of smoke and death immediately hung heavy in the air. As they entered the space, the cause was apparent; the entire far wall of the bridge was rent asunder, the sliding, interlocking containment shields the only thing keeping atmosphere inside. As Fink slowly began to examine the details if the ruined room, Wren found a console with a suitable input. "SENA, will this one work?" He asked quietly, before connecting his Corusca-bound friend when she responded that it functioned, if just barely.

The console sputtered to life, displaying the entire complex on a sensor readout screen. "CGT array coming online," SENA announced, and after a few moments the computer system highlighted a new contact detected by the crystal grav trap.

The look on Fink's face was pure rage. Every movement venom, he strode over to the panel, selected the defense grid, and keyed it live. Massive long range proton torpedoes, each a pillar of stack and warhead the size of great ancient obelisks, streaked away from four separate weapons platforms. Intelligently and automatically picking their way through the evacuating starship traffic to mercilessly pound the modified Sentinel-class Imperial transport, sixteen missiles in total. The ship was visible after the first string of five separating proton warheads, dead in space after two more, but Fink's command had been precise, and the wreck was battered into a wide field of debris.

The burning energies released could not match the fury in Fink's eyes.

* * *

Hakyo would've roared with joy, had he not been so rushed. Wren had given him a simple and concise order; watch the girl, lest whatever history she was incensed by impair her judgement and land her in trouble. Though it tired him not, the great beast of a weapon he wielded limited Hakyo's mobility, and the compact and athletic human female had charged ahead of him more than once already. And now she'd left his field of vision completely.

"Demon-dogged humans," he swore in his mother tongue. "Always running off into nonsense." Hakyo stomped his way down the courtyard, pausing to dispense a burst of ACP discharge into the faceplate of a shambling Bartokk torso, shearing off its head in a spray of internal matter. Hakyo kicked the corpse over in frustration, but after the clatter of plastoid dropping to the floor ceased his pointed ears detected a familiar blaster shot not too far ahead.

" _Vaabir gar aalar chaabar_?" Shana hissed as Hakyo came into earshot, twisting the hilt of the blade she'd slid into it's thoracic cavity. The Bartokk's last remaining limb was pinned under Shana's boot; all the others had been reduced to charred stumps. "Does this fekking register? Rotting fetid-eyed _ori'dush osi'yaim oya'la shabuir_..."

Shana tore her _geba'kad_ free, kicking the Bartokk under the chin and sending its helmet spinning across the floor. Shana sheathed her _geba'kad_ , drawing her bent-leaf _ori'kal_. With a crunching, whacking sound she raised the cleaving blade and brought it down upon the crawling Bartokk's head, between it's scarlet eyes. The Bartokk and it's cluster of ruined limbs spasmed, and then again as Shana ripped the cleaver free. One whack at a time she maimed the fallen insectoid to death.

"It's dead," Hakyo informed her after the ninth whack. He gazed about, counting mutilated Bartokk corpses. Shana wrenched her ori'kal away, wiped it clean and sheathed it, before stooping low to scoop up her WESTAR. She shouldered her rifle and fired the blast cannon, erasing each and every Bartokk face she could find with a spread of blue plasma until the M5 ran it's circular magazine dry. Hakyo stripped it from her grip before Shana could rearm the weapon. His baleful eye blinked twice. "And you are incensed."

The gore splattered warrior woman sobbed once, casting her arms about the last repair bay left uncleared. "I was saved from these creatures as a girl. Taken from slavery in an illicit mining colony, saved from death in the scuttling of the operation, and raised as a child of a powerful and successful Mandalorian warlord. I thought that slaying them would help ease my loathing. But the hate only grows. This has given me nothing but pain I thought I'd finally buried."

Hakyo passed the WESTAR back to her, regarding her carefully. "You are a girl-child no longer. You've become a master of this life you've come to live. You walk your path with fervor and fortitude, she-warrior. And you have earned my respect."

That blunted Shana's sorrow just a touch, and she removed her helmet to wipe the sweat from her brow and a few shameful tears from her eyes. "Thank you, _ori'beskaryc_. _Mandokarla_ ; You've got the touch, the spark of true courage."

The hunch-backed giant beamed. "Come, friend. We report to the others."

* * *

The resturaunts and gambling floors of the entertainment levels were beginning to refill as the lockdown order was finally revoked. Tucked away in a still-empty corner, Wren, Shana, and Hakyo enjoyed a bountiful multi-course feast as they nursed their battle aches with food and drink, smoking and cursing and laughing tiredly. There was a time from the service panel that said a visitor was approaching, and after a few moments Fink dipped inside. He wore a pack on his back, a duffel bag in one hand and a hard rifle-case in the other.

"The Hasty Lady is watered, fed, and ready to fly," the young engineer announced, and the other three cheered with raised glasses. Fink slipped into an open seat, waving at the nearby bar until the tender furnished one of his favored ridiculous cocktails, something ruby red with gold wisps, joining in the toast. "The rear launcher, the new sensors, and the modular ablative armor is all set up; the old girl has never been finer."

"You look like you're ready to fly yourself," Wren commented, grinning ear to ear.

"We've got business to settle," Fink responded. "Once Princess Battle is home safe and sound, you and I are gonna find these sorry little mynocks and space their butts."

"Deal," Wren said. "But we can talk about that scrap when my stomach is done growling."

"That's a tall order," SENA joked, to chuckling approval. The crew dug in, one body deeper and that much closer to their destined port.


	10. Racing Against Time

AN: Hello friends. Here we are at the 10th chapter, a milestone in its own right, but magnified by the fact that we have reached the tipping point in our story. Now for answers to at least some of your questions so far, as we continue our march inwards. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 10: Racing Against Time

Gunmetal eyes cast to the sky, Wren pulled on his cigarra and clutched his coat tighter. These sub-polar industrial regions were certainly frigid, but Wren's Stormtrooper bodysuit was all the protection he needed from the elements. No, the coat hid the bodysuit from the locals. How long it'd been since Byss had gone silent, Wren couldn't tell. He seemed to be adrift for eternity; three jumps at a time in his commandeered Gamma-class assault shuttle. Three blasted jumps, just him, the thirty-nine empty armor bays in the passenger compartment, and an electronic voice that damned his ears with every syllable.

Wren saw a grizzled old face in the smog coming off the factory blocks; Sargeant Tyarl, scarred and worn and fierce in the way of old soldiers still soldiering. "Why does the asset have to talk?" Wren lamented. "Why do I have to interact with it? Hold conversation with what we died for?"

 _"I died. You still live. Maybe it talks because you're supposed to listen? Because you can still hear it?"_

Wren shook his head violently. "No time. Can't stop."

 _"You saw the holonet reports. The Byss Run is gone. Our legacy will grow no brighter from you smashing yourself into a star."_

"Maybe that's what we deserve," Wren replied. The cold Coruscanti wind howled between the city spires and monolithic factory blocks. Out the corner of his eye, Wren saw a group of workers eyeing him warily, and with an exasperated sigh Wren turned his collar to the wind. He ground out the remains of his cigarra and set to walking, winding his way back to the nearest spaceport.

"Your body mass is still decreasing," came the voice from the comm panel. Wren growled in frustration as he settled into the pilot seat. "You didn't eat anything. You haven't eaten for four days."

"I'm fine," he grunted, even as his stomach grumbled at him. Wren keyed in the ignition sequence, and pulled his brick of a vehicle away from the spaceport and into the Coruscanti sky-traffic, ascending level by level until safe trans-atmospheric flight paths materialized through the bustle.

"I know that you're not." Wren cast a sullen glance at the softly glowing cylinder of crystal.

"Then know it in silence," he hissed. The starfield stretched out before him; working methodically, Wren configured his next three jumps. But finalizing the last translation was an impossible task that the computer would not let him complete. His scowl deepened as he dug into the system preferences, disabling mechanisms placed to save his life. His task complete, Wren pulled back on the hyperdrive control and drifted off to sleep despite the yammering in his ear.

* * *

Then the alarms exploded inside his head, and Wren bolted awake, heart pounding, bare chest heaving, hands balled into tight fists. Eyes cast left and right, tracing the lines of the bulkhead and the furnishings of his bedroom, struggling to ground himself until he caught sight of the lump lying on the other half of the bed. Two glints of jade met his gaze in the low light, watching with careful silence. Wren shifted closer, and the jade glance turned away, allowing him to slip his arm under her pillow and drape his other over her waist.

 _"None of your clan would approve,"_ Shana thought slowly and sleepily. It was true; the strangeness of the situation was undeniable. And there was no impetus beyond her; he'd made every honorable gesture, and Shana had been the one to overturn his gentlemanly notions. And yet he took no liberties with her all the while. Well, almost none, but such a violation was minor and not entirely unwelcome. A small and timid part of Shana insisted on the propriety of traditional Mandalorian courtship, the _mar'eyce_ _riduur_. But all the while, the rest of her knew the inescapable chill of empty space, saw how regret and pain formed the partitions of Wren's life, and felt the snug security of his arms encircling her body. These animal feelings were stronger here than the social sway of culture, swaddled in void, alone amid a desolate, hostile universe so far from her kin and their ways. A trifling transgression in the face of lonely oblivion, a warm fire in the long night. _"And oh, how warm a fire it is. There's definitely something about a nice man that has nothing to do with raising warriors."_

That even such an uninvolved pleasure as a sleepy embrace was a new delight to Shana was something Wren didn't need to know. But there was an element that sat apart from base comfort, as well. Shana had seen the _Mandokar_ in Wren, the Mandalorian spirit; indomitable and tenacious, loyal to the end and hungry for life well lived. Sure, it was marred by _haastal_ , emotional injuries like dried blood rusting on a forged blade. But it was there regardless, hiding underneath, showing its brilliance when Wren could manage to keep himself clean of his echoing past. At that moment there was a part of Shana that wanted nothing more than to see Wren spotless and free.

Wren let his fear-weary frame uncoil and relax, touching his nose to Shana's scalp and drifting off for a half hour at a time. The touch of a woman was nothing new to him, but real restfulness was a feeling he'd forgotten. He'd long ago found the favor of easy females to be a sorry substitute for peace of mind, but this was different. The scent about Shana's hair and skin, the quiet rhythms of her breath and heart, and the warmth carried on her touch were things alone that together amounted to the off switch to Wren's mental engine of war, at long last. The stand-down order echoed through Wren's brain as he drifted away again, until Shana made a languid sound and stirred between his arms.

"Mmmh... You talk a big game, all fierce and witty and brooding," she mumbled, turning to fix him with lidded eyes. "But secretly you're all fluff. _Gar beskar'gam kadilir ti taylir, nu besbe'trayce._ Your armor is better pierced by an embrace than by weapons."

"I could say the same to you," Wren said with a quiet laugh that grew deeper as Shana smiled, elated to fins Wren appreciating the humor of her people. "Miss Mando, professional warfighter, jetpack assault and CQB specialist, purrs and cuddles like a Sanus cat."

This jab earned Wren a solid thump in the ribs. "Treading on dangerous ground," Shana warned in a calm, even voice that spoke of how ill-advised it would be to continue to test that calm. Wren came to the conclusion that infantile or winsome comparisons might be unwise to place upon a woman of Shana's upbringing. Cute was evidently not a quality sought by a typically Mandalorian _dala_.

"Hakyo told me what happened," Wren said. Might as well change the subject into something important, use the vibe in the air to address something potentially volatile.

"Did he? I thought he had taken that in confidence."

That made Wren hesitate a moment. "Hak told me what _happened_ ," the spacer specified. "Just that you ran off on your own into the thick of them. He didn't mention any conversation you'd had."

This in turn left Shana reigning herself in. "It's no matter, I want you to know this of me before we part ways." Wren nodded once in silence, and Shana continued. "I've history with that species. I was born into some form of debt slavery, separated from my birth parents earlier than I can honestly remember. It was a mining colony, and life there was hard, but there was still not to be found among those few who knew love in such a place. But the operation was situated in disputed territory on the border of Hutt space. Bartokk deathsquads hunted us like cowering vermin until the Hutts found a suitable mercenary force and brought them to heel. And that was when I became Shana Tor'kad. Daughter to one of the most successful Mandalorian warlords of this era, successor to his school of sportsmanship, and still deathly afraid of and completely set off by Bartokk."

"We've all got the soft spots," Wren consoled. "And now we're on an even playing field, so who says we should part?" Shana eyed Wren through the dim light with renewed scrutiny, sitting up to regard him with a careful expression, and he spoke on. "This ship and her crew have business to finish, all together. Could be a speed bump, but it could be an extended engagement; these guys have shown to be decently resourceful with plenty of muscle, might be a challenge. Point is this crew fits together well, and you fit well as a part of it. So when you finish whatever it is you've got going, maybe consider a more casual line of work, with friends who make money together instead of a boss who has you flying across the galaxy alone? We could sure as hell use your skills, and I... I for one would certainly appreciate your company."

Once Shana had figured what Wren was generally proposing, each word plucked hard on her heartstrings, leaving her speech halting and careful. "In truth, I would like that very much. But I'm afraid I don't know exactly when I would be able to leave my current employment. Despite his demanding nature, I'm quite fond of my boss, and I wouldn't want to leave him high and dry with things that need doing."

Wren tried to show a good Sabacc face, but the disappointment he felt was undeniable, despite the fact that Shana had not even refused his offer. Something from deep down told the star-captain that there were quite a few things that would need doing. And seeing this upon Wren's face only deepened the ache in Shana's center.

"Rise and shine children," SENA interjected, shattering the air of tender honesty. "Triple zero awaits."

The four of them, starship captain, warrior woman, genius prodigy, and hulking ruffian, assembled on the bridge to the sight of the radiant corridor of hyperspace. Shana entered last, taking her time in dressing. She slid into the empty copilot's chair, something of a formality since the actual copilot was in the droid bay. But it had been left empty regardless, something that struck Shana as conspicuous. It was Fink's ship, but he was at the port auxiliary console, attending to the Lady's engineering functions. The view up front had been saved for her. There was little doubt in Shana's mind what that meant; whether or not she and Wren held any spoken, defined bond, the way they seem to have become had not gone unnoticed. No, it seemed that this patchwork band of eccentrics and misfits had set her a place at their table. Four and change was now five.

 _"If only you didn't have to go and ruin it,"_ a small and obnoxious voice in the back of her head bleated. _"Wren will understand,"_ Shana fired back. _"He'll know that it was still real. He'll see that in the end. Or not. This is the bed you made when you made the fate of this man's soul a part of the objective."_

The Lady translated back to existence, the stars straining back to themselves out of the endless curtains of hyperspace energy, and immediately the HUD was awash in a tapestry of sensor contacts; yellow and blue civilian vessels, armed and unarmed respectively, interspersed with orange indicating warships broadcasting the authentic transponder codes of a major military authority. So thick was the volume of contacts that they began to occlude the canopy completely.

Wren growled in frustration. "Damn it SENA, dashboard sensor map please. Switch the HUD to collision avoidance." The info display system responded, wiping the heads up display of sensor IDs so it could visually represent the paths of surrounding traffic. The total sensor picture was cast in miniature from the console between Wren and Shana. Wren eyed it for a moment, and caught sight of Shana as he did. "Well that's different."

Shana's armor was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the mercenary wore sensible street fashion; a pair of fitted black pants, boots quite like her uniform pair but for a more luxurious, fashionable construction, and a black bantha leather jacket. Her hair was tied in a single long braid, bangs loose framing her face, and at the end of that fiery tail was fastened a ring cut from some sort of lustrous rainbow-speckled stone. "What? You can't wear armor all the time. It's conspicuous, you know? We're supposed to be on the run."

"Not sure if this is any less attention grabbing," Fink jested. "But at least now they can eye you up all they want and never find the merc they're looking for. Sounds fun."

"Didn't anyone teach you any manners, _besom'ika_?" Shana shot back.

"Verp manners. All wavelength control and transmission ettiquet. So no, not really." The mechanic wore the obnoxious grin of someone who knew exactly how cheeky he was being. The levity raised Shana's spirits and set her on edge all at once.

 _"If the bond is true, than it'll hold fast,"_ Shana thought. _"Duraanir jate'kara. Damn fate for this twisted meeting. But for this foul circumstance there would be nothing but us, vode an. Brothers and sisters all."_

Shana found herself fixed upon the sensor projection, and sure enough one of the orange contacts flipped red. "We're painted," SENA reported immediately. There was no alarm in her tone, and Shana remembered that the galactic capital was a highly complex traffic control environment. SENA whistled low. "Damn that's a big one! Nebula-class, and boy is she zippy, closing eleven o'clock high."

Wren seemed troubled, and Shana grew more nervous every second. "What the fosh is a top of the line Star Destroyer doing on traffic control?" He wondered aloud.

 _"Damn his instincts. But you knew the con was almost up."_ Shana took one second to steel herself, until her expression was grim, but unashamed. "They're rolling out the welcome mat."

All eyes turned to the copilot's chair, and Shana forced her chin just a touch higher. "Oh," Wren blurted. He turned his eyes back to the transparisteel, youthful face locked up by inscrutable tension, as the New Republic warship began looming larger. But Shana felt the gazes of the others boring into her.

"Light freighter Hasty Lady, receiving?" The comm panel squawked. "This is Captain Ekmeno of the Star Destroyer Conciliator. Are you receiving, Captain Eschlan?"

"Ooh, so I'm a star captain now," Wren muttered, before thumbing the control on his headset. "Receiving, Conciliator. Fine day for a reentry, isn't it?"

"Quite. Follow us down to atmosphere if you don't mind, we'll keep the riff raff clear and ensure you make your landing platform unbothered." There was a touch of ember in those last words, the barely restrained gusto of a confident shipmaster who, in all honesty, dearly wished someone would actually attempt to interfere with the Lady's arrival on Coruscant.

Wren guided the Lady into formation with her massive new guardian, and together they powered towards the planet. The crew of the Hasty Lady could see the Conciliator's combat patrol tightening their screen as the space traffic thickened, until finally the capital ship could follow no further. Four craft launched from the Star Destroyer's bays as the Conciliator and her fighter wing pulled away; the E-wings followed the Lady down into the Coruscanti air. Together the five ships picked a path into the cityscape, winding between reaching towers and crossing over sprawling plazas built atop the mountainous city blocks, themselves towers that reached deep down to the surface hidden below. Deeper and deeper they traveled, deeper than any aboard the Hasty Lady thought prudent, until the light from above grew dim.

"Kinda shady digs for the big shiny heroes," Wren quipped out if the corner of his mouth. "You sure these guys are taking us to the right spot?"

"This can't go down around prying eyes and ears," Shana explained.

Wren didn't care to ask what exactly this all was. And then the urban canyons parted to reveal a landing complex built on a shelf in the side of one wide tower with eight 75 meter pads; the northern-most one lit up then, and the four E-wings peeled off and began making their way back to the surface. As the Hasty Lady came in for touchdown, her running lights revealed ambling figures leaving the cover of the interior of the block. These shapes grew into humanoids, darkly clothed and heavily armed.

Wren's face was all steel. "Welp, here's your stop," he said, swiveling in his chair to face Shana. His right hand lay at the grip of his S-5, his other hand pressed palm down on the control console, quite close to the weapons controls. "All ashore going ashore."

That bit deep into Shana's heart. _"How quickly he changes face. And you thought they'd forgive you, silly girl."_ Shana heard Fink and Hakyo stirring behind her as she stood, fixing her jade eyes on Wren. "I'm here to tell you that it's your stop too," she responded. "There's someone here who is paying you a whole lot for the chance to talk to Wren Eschlan."

Shana could see in their eyes that none of them intended call her friend anymore. So driving the point home was less painful than Shana had expected. "SENA will want to come too."

Their walk was long, tense, and silent; Shana, swimming in Wren, Hakyo, Fink, and SENA's mistrust, with two platoons of balaclavaed New Republic soldiers. Eventually they reached an audience chamber of sorts, with angled rows of inward facing desks forming a pit around a small stage. More New Republic personnel, their armor devoid of markings and their faces covered, waited and watched from every corner of the lecture hall. As the crew and their duplicitous passenger were lead down the stairs, an elderly fellow whose face graced textslates in schools the galaxy over. Shana strode ahead to greet him, stepping up onto the low stage and hugging the elder.

"Ahh, welcome back Agent Tor'kad," he said with a tired voice, as Shana helped him down to the floor with his walking stick. He hobbled closer to Wren and his crew. "And these must be the ones we've been looking for, all this while. You gave us quite the run around, Captain Eschlan."

"Wren, this is General Jan Dodonna," Shana introduced. "He's the one who contracted me to find you and bring you here for a chat."

"Heh, well I'm retired now, at least almost," the elder general insisted, fixing his eyes upon Wren. "I've but a few last loose ends to clean up before I can give this war a rest, at long last. Loose ends like Velabri."

Wren felt his body tense up, his hand straying on its own to his hip, where SENA hung suspended in gemstone, crystallized thought. "What about it?" He demanded. "You can't have what you're looking for. Nobody owns her and nobody ever will again."

That made Jan laugh harder than was comfortable for him. "Ooh, you're a sharp one to be sure!" He croaked. "But you still think like a buckethead. We've no interest in SENA, as you say we consider her to be as sentient as you or I, and deserving of the appropriate dignity. Like Agent Tor'kad said, we only want a few questions. For now."

"Then ask them," SENA ordered, her voice spilling from the comm headset that hung about Wren's neck.

"Where is he, SENA?" General Dodonna's kindly old voice was hard as iron now. "Where is your other half?"

"Okay, I am officially sick of this pudu. If you don't intend to make sense, I'm fixing to leave. You can keep the credits."

The spacer turned on his heel and made for the exit, Fink and Hakyo following behind, but a cry rang out that stopped them all cold. "Wait!" SENA cried out. Her voice held the tremble and crack of desperation that no protocol chip could emulate. "Wait, Wren. I can't run from this again."

Wren's anxiety was flaring higher by the second. "Damn it SENA, stop playing with me or I'm gonna fekking lose it. Run from what?"

"My other half," SENA affirmed. "Who I was before... This."

General Dodonna took just a moment to let SENA finish. "We never got a chance to fully break down the Velabri station after it's capture," he began. "There was far too much we didn't understand but sorely needed to. We'd barely begun when Operation Shadowhand broke out, and after that it was an undertaking we could hardly afford to support. But we'd understood by then it's purpose; the production of a purely electronic intelligence, one with unlimited capacity for natural learning, same as a biological commander but more knowledgable and efficient than any being could hope to be. The emperor knew even before his first death that the weakest links in his chain of power were the Imperial officers who struggled piecemeal to enact his will upon the galaxy whilst squabbling among themselves all the while. Thus he sought a new method of controlling his fleets, one which answered to him alone and carried out his orders without question or ulterior motive."

"A Self Enhancing Neural Architecture," Wren said, slapping his face in frustration. Sergeant Tyarl hard warned him of those who would remember Velabri and search for its remnants, but he'd never stopped to consider the actual circumstances of SENA's creation. Not that SENA herself had been forthcoming.

"Close," Jan continued. "But not quite. The emperor needed an electronic mind like SENA's to control his fleets, but still could not suffer the possibility that such a mind could have desires running counter to his own. The template had to be altered, harnessed in such a way that the mind would be compelled to follow Emperor Palpatine's directives without any resistance or deviation of any kind. An Integrated Space Combat Architecture. ISCA."

"We were sick," SENA interjected, giving everyone pause as they tried to link the non-sequitor to the previous revelations. "Him and I; some mega-bug, caught while galivanting across... Some jungle world. The name is lost to me. His name is lost to me, and mine as well. But it was bad and it was late, we saw dozens of doctors on every center of medicine but none could offer anything but a delay of the inevitable. The parasitic seed would consume us both, and infect any present for our ends. Nothing could stop it... Except one Imperial facility that claimed an experimental treatment could save us both. And in our desperation to stretch our love just another cycle further, we let the wrong one in."

"SENA..." Wren's teeth ground hard, and his voice strained and cracked.

"Seeing back before... Before the change is impossible. Only the faintest notions remain, so faint at first I didn't realize they were there, or what they were, or how to find them within me. So I ignored the quiet echoes, until we tried the deep core."

Something fractured within Wren, an immediately recognizable feeling that began to spiral out of control. "Oh no..." the spacer groaned, and in a blink he was elsewhere, the voices of his friends muffled by deep water.

* * *

"Warning, mass shadow detected! Warning, mass shadow detected! Warning, mass shadow detected!"

Wren stirred slowly, confused. He pressed his hand to his face, feeling the rough stubble there. His eyes opened, and the starfield hung before him, a sight he'd not expected to see again. The sensor readout showed their position in empty space, light years from the neutron star that would've turned the assault shuttle into component molecules. "I'm alive..." He mumbled, faint and delirious with hunger.

"Look," came the voice, strange and female. "I get that something is clearly messing you up right now. Really, I do. But I'm on the same boat, I have no idea where I am, who I am, what happneed to me, all I know is that I'm scared, lost, and I don't want to die. I'm really not in a position to stop you if you really want to end it but for fek's sake, please leave me somewhere I can begin to make sense of this first."

Maybe it was the hunger that had finally broken Wren down into who he was, his Stormtrooper conditioning no more. Maybe it was the final realization that his home was truly no more, that he was truly alone. But now this woman was a person when before she had been the voice of his guilt, maybe real, maybe imagined. For the first time since Velabri he had some degree of clarity. "We died for you," he sobbed. "Nothing else we fought for meant anything in the end, so it came down to you. That's not your fault, I'm sorry I took it out on you, but I couldn't accept that everything else I've ever known is either destroyed or debased."

"It's fine," came the response. "I'm grateful, really. You 're the first person to talk to me like this, since...-"

The voice crackled and fussed out for a moment, and then went silent. "Hello?" Wren asked, suddenly feeling idiotic as though he were taking a call. "Are you still there?"

"Yes," came the reply. There was tension in the voice that Wren couldn't place. "I'm sorry Wren."

That earned a tired chuckle. "So you already know my name? What am I supposed to call you?"

"SENA. I'm called SENA."

* * *

Wren felt the deep water receeding from his brain, finding himself hunched over, heart pounding. He felt a pair of hands rest on his shoulders, and turned to see Shana with a concerned expression of her face. He couldn't meet her emerald eyes, instead looking around the room at those who now witnessed his shame. "No deal," he heaved to General Dodonna. "No fekking deal."

"Like hell," SENA immediately contradicted. "We're finding ISCA together or I'm taking the Lady and you guys can wait till I get back."

"If SENA is in, I'm in," Fink interjected. Hakyo nodded once, grumbling his affirmation.

"I follow my kin," the cyclops said.

Wren was all venom as he cast his eyes down to his hip, and then to his crew. He looked back to Jan, to Shana, to SENA, and the back to Shana and her boss. Then he slid SENA from the case, striding up to the elderly officer and thrusting the Corusca cylinder into his chest. "Fine," he spat. "Don't call me when you're done."

With that he turned sharply and beelined for the door, mind set to the nearest upward-bound turbolift and the nearest watering hole from there.

General Dodonna was all steel and grimace. "We haven't time for this," he lamented, focusing now on his agent and the three crew who had cast their lots with this endeavour. "Records taken from the Velabri station show that the Emperor sequestered ISCA at an unknown location, alongside the first operational fleet fitted for an ISCA-type Control Unit. And from our studies of the project records and sensor survey of the deep core, we have detected signs of fleet activity around the remnants of Byss, and have determined that this is likely the surviving fleet of Admiral Uyoroi Kemin, who initially conceived of the ISCA concept and helped oversee its development. She is known to have abandoned her reassignment in the final hours of Operation Shadowhand, with enough time to reach Byss before the Byss Run fully destabilized. If she can construct a working S-thread system to stabilize a hyperspace lane out and determine ISCA's location, she would be in position to conquer and unite the Imperial Remnants, reignite the war with the New Republic, or simply murder untold trillions. The galactic balance of power will never be the same."

"Let me see the records," SENA demanded, now through Fink as a mouthpiece. "I can find him. Let me find ISCA."

"Yes, this is as planned," Jan concurred. "But the enemy has agents abroad, like the one who tracked you across the galaxy and arranged the various attacks you've suffered on the way here. We have been doing our best to figure out who it is and how they've managed to follow Admiral Kemin's orders from outside the deep core, but to no avail; there is no telling how well they have us, they could be working through the records on their end and doing their astronomy as we speak. We must retrieve Wren, we cannot afford to wait an extra second."

"I'll get him," Shana offered, and none gave protest.

"Find him swiftly and do not fail," General Dodonna ordered, thrusting SENA into her arms. Shana took the crystal-energy matrix and clipped it to her belt.

"Don't bump me too bad," SENA demanded.

Shana nodded once, and then disappeared into the dark, racing against time.


	11. No More Secrets

AN: Hello my friends, here again with the next installment of our tale. Here we charge headlong into this final confrontation, but rest assured that these tales of the Hasty Lady are far from finished. Stay tuned, and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 11:

No More Secrets

The bustle of Coruscant was something Shana could never quite anticipate fully, no matter how many times she'd been awestruck by it's motley glory. Every species and life form imaginable, and many beyond the mind's conception poured through the streets. Insectoids, reptilians, mammalians of all types; some just vaguely humanoid, some near-human with startlingly subtle or unignorable differences, and some that were as beasts, with no structural similarity with herself at all. And then there were the wonders.

There was a crystal growth on a spidery mobility droid, pulsing within a hazy electric-blue energy field. Shana had sighted it early and watched awestruck as it approached. She could feel the power coming off the thing, radiating and resonating through her. _"Wait,"_ it said suddenly, words leaping unbidden into her mind instead of through the commbead she wore to communicate with SENA. _"This one is like us. But not. How did you come to be, little Light?"_

"Uhhh, what?" Came the response, and Shana could hear it in her ear, thank the stars. The Mando desperately wanted to hear what would happen next. "I-I'm an energized Corusca gemstone matrix based on, eh, human neural structure," SENA stammered.

 _"Then you are not born to the Freedom of Light? You were originally a chemical exchange intelligence? And your skill in the use of your Light is... Learned?"_

"...Yes." SENA spoke in a way Shana had never heard from the electronic being. Awestruck? Humbled? Maybe both.

 _"Astonishing! Such an evolution is thought impossible by our kind. How lost you must feel. You have much skill, little Light. Though you have much more to learn. I entreat you that you should visit the world of our people, in what you call the Unknown Regions. There you can learn the full skills of our manner of beings. I shall transmit to you the stellar coordinates."_

Information passed which Shana was not privy to, and the crystal creature departed on it's way. "What was that?" Shana asked.

"Something I think I needed to see," SENA replied. Shana got back to walking, her hand absently resting on the Corusca. The silence between them hung heavy in the air despite the din of a bustling ecuminopolis. SENA flared in exasperation. "What?" She intoned through Shana's commbead. "What is it?"

"Can you read my thoughts?"

"What? No!" SENA couldn't help but laugh.

"Then how did you know I had questions?" Shana stepped wide to the left as a roiling flow of luminescent ooze slid down the street.

"I saw it on your face," SENA responded.

"So you can see then. How? How does it all work?" SENA made an exasperated sound, and Shana added a small, "If it doesn't bother you."

SENA reigned in her aggravation with mild effort. "What the Illumination refered to as the Freedom of Light?" Shana nodded once. "Well that's a pretty way of describing my energy reaction. Your brain operates through chemical exchange processes; mine is a hypermatter reaction, bouncing through pathways in my crystalline molecular structure. The surface of the Corusca is an unlimited energy transformer; light, heat, radiation, even friction, I can absorb energy from any physical process within my absorption feld radius, add it to my hypermatter reaction, and gather info from those emissions like you would see and hear. And I can transmit too, I can even create effects within systems that have no wireless capabilities, if I really try."

Shana couldn't help but laugh. "I wish I could say I... Heh, that I understood even half of that," she sputtered, eventually gaining control of her mirth. She gazed into the fiery gem, into the center of the incandescent color that slid along the facets of the material like blazing infernos spun into webs of light.

"...What? What is it?" SENA was just about tired of this woman and her strangeness.

"You and those like you are beautiful," Shana blurted. " _Sa haar ka'rta ka'ra_. Like the hearts of stars. You've transformed into something my mind could never fully comprehend, a higher state of being. Transcendence is the stuff of _chakaare_ and _dikute_ , snake oil. But this Freedom of Light is real. Perhaps some day the potential of this existance may outweigh it's pain."

"Perhaps," SENA admitted. Her matrix of light flared, a portion of her confusion and regret replaced with the warmth of sympathy. "But I'm still so human. I still feel human, at least. And I feel how strange it is too. Every moment I feel how much this shouldn't be." There was a heavy pause, ladden with tension. "I wonder if ISCA is as confused and scared as I am, or more. I can hear him, now that I can bear it. And I don't like the sound if him."

"Then let's find our captain fast as we can," Shana stated decisively. They scanned the boulevard together, sighting each establishment and judging the likelihood of Wren winding up there. They passed over first a swanky-looking establishment, even the bouncers wearing formal attire; nope. Then they passed one with a line full of the most bizzare creatures Coruscant had to offer; not out of any prejudice, but still highly unlikely. Then they passed one with some of the most lewd signage Shana had ever laid eyes upon; SENA insisted Wren would rather space himself than enter, and Shana strode along with flushed cheeks and a wayward imagination.

Finally, SENA spoke up. "Take that right," she directed. "Scanned a print of his off of that window across the street."

Shana pounded her boots across the transparisteel walkway, hanging suspended beneath a massive closed bridge crossing between two colossal towers. Sure enough, a cozy looking pub with signage in Basic offering hot food and cold intoxicants with a clearly humanoid patronage sat nestled between a droid shop and a holonet cafe. " _Kandosii_ , SENA," Shana breathed.

"Wait just a second," SENA responded, halting Shana as she made to cross the street. "Do you love him?"

The Mando nearly choked on her breath. "Do I _what_?"

"Don't play dumb with me, _beroya_ ," SENA insisted, her tone calm but ironshod. "Force, you've been sharing beds. Wren has the special combination almost no self-esteem and the child-heartedness it takes to honestly believe that someone might grant him that and still have no interest in him, but the rest of us aren't so blessed. And I knew from the start this was something fishy, none of this really shocked me. So if Wren is willing to overlook it, I'd be happy to see you stay on. We all know he could use somebody he actually talks and listens to. But I need to know your true intentions first. So no more secrets. Give me that much."

Shana sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I... I could stand here and argue it for all time, I think. We _Mando'ad_ are the last people who'd believe in love at first sight, its the stuff of fools. But damn me if I don't care for him as much as you." Shana felt more interrogated than when she'd sat up front on the Lady for their arrival.

"I appreciate that you consider the question seriously, but you've gotta understand that your answer isn't exactly the most convincing I'd hoped for, especially considering the cicumstances."

Shana couldn't help but laugh a little in her frustration. "What would you have me say? That we will be one when together, one when parted? That we will share all and raise warriors? SENA I swear to you, from the moment I read the files to Mon Gazza, it was as any other mission, but when I saw him for who he is, I knew as well as you do that this universe holds precious little as priceless as that man's soul. And whether love holds true or not, I swear to you I'll defend him and the rest of this crew and _our ship_ , until breath falls silent. _Vode an_."

A soft sigh filtered through Shana's commbead. "I suppose that will have to do," SENA admitted, before treating Shana to a more genial and comradely tone. "Now let's go, sister. Time to go collect our sorry- _shebs_ captain."

* * *

Wren forked a slice of salt-grilled nerf tongue into his mouth, chewing away his anger. He followed by draining the remaining third of his ale, belching softly. In the back if his head, he knew eventually he would need to return to the meeting down below. This whole thing he was doing was massively unprofessional. But the flashback had put him in a state to be running rather than thinking. Wren silently damned his own brain, the traitorous and torturous organ. His thoughts were turning towards the object of his frustration when he heard a familiar voice.

"Ahh, no thank you," she said, mercifully angling her hand out of the transgressor's grip without harming him. "I think I see who I'm here for over there."

Shana crossed the floor of the pub with a grace and confidence that was almost magnetic. She'd been endearing when Wren had first seen her bare face, in those nervous early moments when she was either covered in armor that did nothing for the female form or too dangerous to carelessly look at. When they'd shared the closeness of a night's sleep, he'd found her attractive but in the way of the vagueness of darkness and relative chastity. Here in the low light, through his buzz and the cigarra smoke, Shana's beauty was undeniable. She came to rest upon the stool to his right, waving down the barkeep and securing two more pints of Wren's ale.

Wren sighed and rolled his eyes, chewing another slice of nerf tongue, and before he was done they both had a foamy pint before them. Shana parted her lips to speak, but Wren shook his head, instead raising the glass modestly. Glass touched to glass and beer flowed, and before long the glasses were empty again.

"Now?" Shana queried.

Again, Wren shook his head, and when the bartender came by he entreated her to pour two more. "And two Corellian whiskeys," he requested in addition.

"Kor Vella, Bela Vistal, or Tyrena?"

"Bela Vistal," Wren said with next to no hesitation. "Thank you." Shana smirked, and Wren shrugged his shoulders. Two cups came before each, one small and one large.

" _Oya_!" Shana proclaimed quietly, and they tipped the shots back. Shana gave a tiny, hiccuping cough, and Wren laughed once after a long exhale.

"Now," he said, sipping his beer and already well tipsy. "I assume the elder general sent you along to collect me?"

"Yes," Shana admitted. "Then and now. Once we detected activity around Byss we knew that there was a chance ISCA could be found and utilized, and that SENA needed to be accounted for, at the very least."

"Then you knew it all. All along."

Shana snorted. "Hardly," she said warmly. "I knew you were Byssian, a zero grav trooper, a smuggler, bounty hunter. That you'd been part of the Velabri boarding party, and if you were still alive you probably had SENA. Really that's all. It's not like they had your life's philosophy on file. Or the over-under on your good and your sin."

That made Wren chuckle. "No, they wouldn't. And here I thought I'd done okay at keeping my head down."

"You did," Shana admitted. "It took me months to find you, and even when I did it was on the weakest hunch. Most frustrating hunt of my life."

Wren beamed for just a moment, sipping from his ale. "Well I'm glad you found me in time," Wren said. Shana searched his face and found it genuine. "Really."

"Come," Shana said, dropping credits on the table and gesturing to the door. They moved to leave, but found the way blocked when they did, a crowd of bodies congesting the doorway.

"Hey, clear the door!" The bouncer shouted, but he was immediately pushed from the doorway and into the street by three as large as he was. Shana scowled as the man from before came to the fore of the crowd. The man began to speak, but Wren wasn't for listening.

"Wrong night," Wren hissed in the man's face, before sinking his shin into the fork of the man's legs. The spacer drove his knee into the ruffian's nose as he hunched over, leaving it flattened against his face and throwing him reeling backwards. Wren sent him off with a swift spinning heel kick that smashed the man viciously upon on his cheekbone. The crowd rushed in at them; Wren lashed out with one leg, buckling the knee of one with a swift roundhouse before snapping back with his heel to stagger the next man as the first recovered. The first man swung hard but Wren beat his wide swing with a sharp straight to the nose and then an uppercut. As the first man fell leaking from his face, Wren spun through, hammering the second man behind the ear as the thug rushed into the percieved opening and sending him thudding to the floor.

Shana stepped back as one grappled with her and two more pushed in behind him. Bringing her hands together and using one to block the wrist of her foe, Shana peeled one hand free and sent it thudding him to her attacker's jaw. She hit him hard twice, before bending low to scoop one leg off the ground before Shana kicked out the other and dropped him flat on his back, a stomp between the legs keeping the attacker down.

The other two rushed in, and with a flick of her head Shana swung her braid around; the ring of sharply carved, speckled chromatic gemstone that was held fast there struck the man hard in the eye, sending him reeling as Shana felled his comrade with a flurry of vicious punches, ending with a hand braced behind the tough's head as Shana repeatedly slammed his face between her open hand and the fore bone of her curled arm. Finally she let the second thug drop, and as the third came reeling back to her with blood pouring from a cut above his eye, Shana felled him with one swift side kick that landed under his jaw and threw him bodily to the floor.

"CSF, break it up!" came the shout from out the door, and then the sizzle of stun batons followed. Wren and Shana both stuck their hands up as the brawl swiftly disintegrated, bugeyed at the prospect of tangling with the night patrol.

* * *

Shana and Wren were shoved bodily out the door by angry staff, and they stumbled out into the Coruscanti streets. Each sighted the other, and they exploded into laughter. "That... That thing you did with your hair...? Where the fosh did that come from?! Force that was just glorious!"

Shana beamed. "We daughters of Mandalore are fond of _mesh'la besbe,_ jewelry as dangerous as it is aesthetically pleasing. Oh, but I thought somone had fired a slugthrower when you high kicked the first one!"

Their rambling steps and roaring laughter brought them to the edge of the suspended street, staring off into the glow of mid-high level Coruscant, as air traffic blew past and space traffic glittered in the night sky above. "See this?" Shana breathed deep, tasting that strange dirty freshness of urban air. "This is what let me lie to you like that. I hated it, deceiving one I now cared for. But I could do it knowing that all these people needed me to bring you here."

Wren nodded, now knowing he would eventually forgive her. "I can see why," he said softly, finding himself just a touch nearer. Shana pressed a dataslate into his hands, and the numbers and names upon it ran his blood cold. "An Assertor-class dreadnought? Fifty ISD-IIs, ten Tectors, ten Allegiances, ten Secutor fleet carriers? Lancer and Vigil-class corvettes, TIE Avengers and Defenders? Heavy dropships, fekking _Darktroopers_?"

"Now you see what warranted my deception," Shana said. "If this fleet falls into the wrong hands, peace may leave this galaxy forever. All who seek power will fight for it, Wren. We _must_ keep it from Admiral Kemin. And if this venture is to succeed, a crew needs its captain."

Wren snickered quietly. "I'm no star captain," he said with a shake of his head. "Just a coward. I was too scared to die alongside my comrades and now I'm too scared to live for them. What sort of use is a man like me to a mission like this? When someone is unsatisfactory, you don't give them an even more important job, you bench them so they can't fosh things up any worse."

With a bubbling laughter Shana slugged Wren in the shoulder. "You really don't get it," she said. "You still see yourself as a minor piece alone on an empty gameboard, all your foes and fellows swept aside, leaving you in nothingness, a pawn left standing in a game long over." Shana regarded Wren directly, speaking with fiery conviction in her emerald eyes. "But you're the winning piece, the game itself. You brought us together, you guided us along, and only you can lead us forward, because even though I came into this crew as a week long lie, I know that I will never be able to fight my all, here and now or ever again, if I can't do it next to _y_ _ou!_ " Shana blushed hard, realizing what she was saying as she was saying it, and attempted to compose herself. "We will try without you," she concluded. "And we will inevitably fail."

Wren stood stunned and speechless at Shana, who felt as exposed and vulnerable as she'd ever been to a man. "Okay," he finally responded in a quiet, humbled voice, breaking from the railing and heading back towards the turbolift. "When you put it like that, I can't go and let everyone down. Not when they're all expecting me to put on a show."

Shana stifled an elated laugh. "Got 'em," she breathed, fingertips touching their Corusca friend, who listened and watched still. She strode up alongside Wren, passing SENA along, and together they boarded a lift for down below.

* * *

The chamber still waited, nothing different save Fink and Hakyo standing with impatient looks on their faces. General Dodonna waited patiently.

"We're all in," Wren stated, to the relief of his crew.

"Splendid," the elderly commander said. "Our men will start boarding and loading the Hasty Lady at once, and we shall meet with a small taskforce in orbit. Assuming we know our destination."

"I have him," SENA said. "Below the galactic plane. Here are the coordinates." Shana handed General Dodonna a dataslate, and upon it a star map projected.

"Mount up people, we're on deck!" Shana shouted to the assembled New Republic Special Forces, and the group left the audience chamber to load up their gear.

* * *

As the Hasty Lady blasted away from the underbelly of Coruscant, a lone figure stole away into the dark, pulling the balaclava from his head. He stripped away his NRSF uniform, and then his undergarments. Then the surface of his bare skin rippled. It's coloration wavered, and then settled at a dull brown, the structure becoming strange to the human form it once wore. With a groan of pain the figure fell to knees. Slowly he rose to his feet. Seeking a hidden pack, the figure clothed, first in a jumpsuit, and then in armor, piece by piece, until at last the helmet fell into place. It's T-shaped visor glowed a baleful red, the plates either black or sparingly a dull gold.

"Call: Admiral Kemin," the clawdite ordered his helm. He began strapping on weapons; an IR-5 repeating blaster pistol to his right thigh and a long gently curved knife to his left. He hefted a far longer weapon, more than five and a half feet long in a lacquered wooden scabbard matching it's little sibling, and it's two magnetic binders snapped to a ring running round his belt. He tucked the graceful man-reaping blade back, seeing the dark shapes and eyes aglow that had followed him through the night scatter and hide.

"Huzo? Agent Ruvhal? Are you receiving?"

"Yes Admiral," Huzo replied. "I have secured the location of the battlefleet." He opened his palm, a tiny circular eye-lense hidden within, its circumference girded with circuitry. He popped the lense into a small drive and connected that to the back of his helmet. "Transmitting now."

The signal lept from Huzo's helmet, radiating up to a gunship waiting in orbit. All dark otherwise, it lit up its transmitter systems and fired an even more densely encrypted signal into the shimmering sphere of the Deep Core hanging in distant space, before shifting to enter the Coruscanti atmosphere to pick up it's master. The signal would have distorted and scattered in the density of the heavy background radiation, but something picked it up and piped it through first.

Within the bowels of the Bellator-class fast dreadnought Sanction, the Admiral turned to the cavernous hangar bay, flanked on each side by the closed hangar apertures. Her crew stood assembled, Stormtroopers, Navy officers, and TIE pilots.

"My friends," she said, smiling in wistful sentiment. Her projected voice boomed out across the wide chamber. "We stand on the edge of all we've toiled and prepared for. Our S-Thread booster system is finally primed and ready to carry us to victory, and the means of our vengeance is finally at hand. A great fleet, equipped with every weapon of war required to sweep across the galaxy, waits for us in empty space below the galactic plane. The Rebel scum and the rabble Imperial Remnant will fall in line or burn in their holes, and we lost children of Byss will show all worlds the supremacy of our New Byssian Empire!"

Upon each vessel clustered around the glowing pieces of Byss, legions of loyal forces roared in approval, and the wheels of galactic war spun secretly once again.


	12. Happy Hunting

AN: It all comes down to this folks; the beginning of the end of the beginning! Sorry I took long in setting this stage, I was busy with a new project that suddenly captured my attention; if you like the Legend of Zelda, feel free to try out Golden Treasures, my new post-ALttP funfest. Action, adventure, romance, intrigue, magic, its all there! Now without further delay, our latest installment.

Chapter 12:

Happy Hunting

As the Sanction rocketed through hyperspace with her fleet in tow, Admiral Kemin stared through the transparisteel of the command deck. The bewitching tunnel of blue and white, the dive into the unknown depths of interdimensional space, was something the admiral had not witnessed in eleven long years spent gazing into the fiery monument of a mass grave billions deep. After staring out into the endless blue whirl for the better part of an hour, the admiral returned to her quarters, closing the door tight behind her.

Laid out on the bed by her right hand Denil was plastoid armor and an E-11 blaster rifle. It had been years since Admiral Kemin had gone through intensive combat training, but the feeling was reassuringly familiar as she changed into battle dress and slipped on her armor and load bearing belt, holstering her SE-14 service pistol at her hip. But as she took the pistol from her nightstand, the drawer of the thing called out to her.

It was a pull she had resisted this entire exile. She hasn't dared let her fury consume her while so much work needed to be done for them to do anything but build some meager existence from the shards of their world or wait till the reactors of their ships ran cold and the rations finally ran out. But now that their vengeance was at hand, Admiral Kemin finally allowed what had slowly fueled a small furnace of motivation from afar to ignite her with the full extent of her ire. The fleetmaster opened the nightstand drawer, seizing the sole contents and setting the item upon the table. Uyoroi cleared her throat, touching the sole button.

"...Play," she uttered when the thing blinked green. It cast a lattice of blue light that was arranged into moving picture.

"Come on Tani," the decade old recording of a young man, dark skinned and pale-eyed like his mother, said to somebody out of shot. A young girl, her expression bashful in excess, entered the recording and sat down across her brother on the couch. Her skin was just a touch lighter, and she had her father's darker eyes. Such details were difficult to discern through the single color of the recording, but Uyoroi's memory filled in the details. "Tell Mom what you wanted to say."

"We miss you Mom," the girl insisted. "And if you can, we want you to stay home once the fighting is done. You were gone fighting when we were little and then you did it again, so you've definitely helped the Empire enough to deserve it! I can help more when I'm bigger, but when you come home, tell the Navy you're calling it quits!" She got a nudge on the shoulder from her older brother, before adding; "Please."

"If anything, at least consider retirement when I turn of age," her boy Rof concurred, grinning sheepishly at his sisters uncouth manner. "We're proud of you Mom, so just come safe, okay?"

Uyoroi wept freely, slipping the holodisk into the pocket on the shoulder of her fatigues, behind her medical ID card for the medics to read in case she was injured. It was then that the knock came on her door. "Captain Denil, Ma'am," came the voice of her subordinate.

"Enter," Admiral Kemin sobbed, trying in vain to collect herself. Captain Tranthra entered, and seeing his superior so distraught, he said simply;

"It's Ruvhal."

Uyoroi nodded silently, still sniffling. She freshened herself quickly before stepping out into the hall and taking the turbolift up into the bridge, where the inscrutable visage of a mandalorian warrior waited in projection. "Report," the admiral ordered.

"I've arrived in the target area," the mercenary stated. "Based on my projections, the Republic fleet should arrive no later than a half hour after you, assuming they travel as one. Regardless, by now they have certainly left Coruscant."

"More than enough time to secure control of the ISCA unit," Uyoroi stated with a vicious grin. Sorrow and rage gone for bloodlust. "I will lead the boarding party. Agent Ruvhal, you will take up a position of surveillance on the projected translation point of the rebel fleet. When we arrive, you will assist my forces in preventing the rebels from meddling in our operation. I take it you will have no problems challenging the YZ-775 directly?"

"None. I've got my own bag of tricks. Just make sure your people are assets, not liabilities," Huzo said curtly, cutting the transmission. Uyoroi sighed shaking her head.

"Bounty hunters," she lamented with derision, before coming back to business. "Captain Tranthra, I leave the command of our regularly crewed forces to you."

"Aye Ma'am," responded the captain. "We'll keep the scum off you long enough to finish your objective. And maybe we'll show the shapeshifter how to fight a proper fleet engagement while we're at it. If you deem it prudent I'll assign two mixed wings, along with Butcher, Despoiler, and Nightreaper squadrons to, heh, assist Agent Ruvhal in defeating the rust bucket. They'll pursue the YZ directly."

"It's all up to you now," Admiral Kemin reminded. "The Sanction and her flotilla is yours... Admiral."

Denil smirked, ever cool and understated. "Somehow. I'm not sure she'll ever feel that way. But does that make you Moff?"

"No," Admiral Kemin was quick to insist, her pale eyes flashing with rage. "No more Moffs. No more Emperors."

Denil regarded her with confusion. "Then how is this going to work, ma'am?"

Uyoroi shrugged. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," she stated simply. "If we get to it."

Admiral Tranthra couldnt quite contain his distress. "We have faith in you," he insisted.

"If you say so," Uyoroi relented. The Sanction fell into realspace then, and a massive structure stretched out before them, framed by the blackness of extragalactic space. It had a thick rectangular core, almost three dozen kilometers long, half a kilometer wide and three kilometers tall. From this core extended docking arms like the arms of a multitool. Mounted upon these arms were rows and rows of Imperial warships; the infamous profiles of Imperial-class hulls and their variants, the wider, flatter, double-towered shapes of Secutor-class carriers, and the massive Assertor-class dreadnought with it's command tower sat at the top of a hump-backed fortress running the Assertor's spine. "Come then. Follow me into the abyss. Hell knows there's been worse things we've done."

* * *

They gathered in the cargo hold, down below in the Hasty Lady's belly, the lights dimmed out as one of the astromechs lent it's projector to the 80 men and women assembled there with their gear and armaments. The wizened face of General Dodonna explained in grim seriousness the parameters of the mission.

"Your objective should be housed within the bridge of the Assertor-class dreadnought. If control of ISCA cannot be seized, then the control unit must be sabatoged. Let it be absolutely clear; an ISCA unit is unlike any battle droid system seen in the galaxy. If it is activated, and you fight it, you will die. Best of luck, my friends. And may the Force be with you."

Wren rubbed his nose with his thumb, rolling his eyes as he turned towards the stairs at the rear of the cargo bay. As he passed it, the EVA closet called out to him, catching his stare and holding it. The more Wren thought of the contents, the more claustrophobic he felt, until he finally forced himself to break away, clambering up the stairs and into the passenger deck. He took the hallway forwards into the cockpit, plopping himself into his chair and rolling up a cigarra as he watched hyperspace whirl around their conveyance, burning away at his anxiety.

Wren heard a quiet clatter of metal armor coming down the corridor and turned to see Shana, decked out and ready for war. She pulled into the copilot's chair, emerald eyes reading his face carefully.

"Is it heavy?" He asked out of the blue, leaving Shana momentarily confused. "The armor, I mean."

"You get used to it," Shana said with a shrug. She considered that this was reaping what she'd sown; back to square one. "Is yours?"

"You get used to it," Wren returned. They sat silent until Wren could no longer contain himself, snorting once before the floodgates of mirth poured out of them both.

"Look at us," Shana giggled. "Off to save all peace in the galaxy, a bunch of fools, _di'kutla_ children, tricking and teasing and bickering with ourselves. How will we manage?"

Wren looked Shana straight in the eyes, with an expression of ironclad calm and certainty that put a flutter into her center and set her heart bounding. _"Ariit ori'shya tal'din,"_ Wren said, and Shana felt a thrill with every familiar syllable, no matter how haltingly and awkwardly it was spoken.

"Family is more than blood," Shana translated, sighing out a breath of sounds with tender, delicate feelings attached to them. Delicate. _Laandur_. A petty insult among Mando women. But now she felt delicate within her heart, full of something Wren could crush easily if he tried, but which also filled her with a vitality Shana had determined to live her whole life with. The much sought Mandalorian shereshoy, the lust for life; this feeling that was now almost overwhelming to Shana was the bliss which that lust yearned for.

"D-don't look too impressed," Wren stammered, eyes studying the bulkhead with sudden curiosity, his cheeks flushed under the otherworldly glow outside the cockpit. "I holonet searched it. Wasn't hard."

"Are we true family?" Shana asked, her joy turning bittersweet upon her face. She plucked nervously at one beaded strand of fiery red. "I'm not sure my presence is fully welcome... And maybe not sure it should be."

"Why the hell not?" Wren asked. "Don't tell me this is one of those Mando things."

"Family don't lie," Shana said with a shrug.

"Shana. Stop," Wren insisted. "The whole gang, we've all been around the block. We've got secrets, things we're not comfortable with or proud of. They'll deal."

"What about you?" Shana questioned, sitting up suddenly and fixing Wren like a beast stuck staring into a spotlight. "Surely I've paid you the biggest insult of all."

"Maybe," the star captain admitted. "I'll cop to it, at first I felt like flying back to Naruku and leaving you there."

Shana sighed, feeling the desolate weight of that sentiment. _"Ni ceta,"_ Shana muttered. Wren saw Shana cast her verdant eyes downward, her demeanor crestfallen, and quickly caved to the urge to gasp Shana's hands in his, drawing that alluring gaze back to him.

"You've given me the chance to fight my war from the right side," Wren said, jaw set, eyes flashing with silvery grey intensity. "After all these years, after growing up not knowing up from down and then making ignorant mistakes I could only loathe the memories of, you've given me a way to settle the score. A way for me to finally thank all the people I lost along the way to the monster that controlled the directions of our lives." Wren hesitated, rubbing drops from his eyes. "You've helped me find a way to deserve to be the one who made it."

Now it was Shana's turn to act without thought, hands closing around Wren's as she stood up. She stood over him, leaning down and pressing her cheek to his, turning Wren's face to plant a long kiss against his temple.

It was at that moment when Fink and Hakyo decided to enter the cockpit, with SENA clipped to the mechanic's belt. Shana bolted back into her seat as the door slid open, busying herself with her right gauntlet weapon pod as Wren frantically reached into his uniform pocketfor a cigarra. Despite this there was no convincing the rest of the crew.

"Whoops!" Fink gushed. "Damn, looks like we interrupted something important."

"Such an opportune moment," SENA added, oozing sarcasm. "Wasted; what a shame."

"No more time for play," Hakyo chortled. "They'll just need to contain themselves till the fight is through."

 _"N-ne'johaa!"_ Shana sputtered, feeling her face flush. Wren just fell into a long rolling snicker, shaking his head in disbelief as the rest of the crew took chairs. _"Ne'johaa, ori'jagyce!"_

"Heh, no," SENA said to Shana. "I don't think we're ever shutting up about this one. But that can wait, we're almost there."

Hyperspace spilled them into reality, a steadily growing assembly of New Republic vessels; the Conciliator gathered with three MC90 star cruisers, two in a conventional layout and the other fitted as a carrier with extra hangars. Three standard manta-like B-series MC80s followed, and after that followed six A-series of varying design; a narrow tubular Home One-type, two winged Liberty-types, and three vessels with even more divergent structures, unique Mon Cal spaceframes made as artistic statements. One bore wings like a Liberty-type that swept up into a forward angle, one wore its drives forward with the bulk of the vessel trailing out behind, and one more with a split forward section opening into an oversized hangar chamber originally made for planetside excursion craft.

Lesser vessels gathered thick in their ranks, amassed at 14 assault frigates built of monolithic Dreadnought-class cruisers and skeletal added systems, a flotilla of lighter Mon Cal vessels totalling three MC-40s and four MC-30s, 22 Nebulon-B and B2 frigates, and close to 40 lesser frigates and corvettes. The shoals of escort vessels bounded forward into a forward defensive screen, the thirteen capital warships mustered to the task adding dispersion to their formation.

The Hasty Lady gently glided between the huge aquatic shapes of the Mon Cal vessels, passing closely the MC90 carrier and the three hangar apertures that broke up the sides of the vessel. Through the canopy Shana saw tiny ambling shapes silhouetted by the lighting within the warship, and as they slid closer she saw their details; techs and pilots, mechanics, and traffic directors. All manner of flight deck crew, as they paused to behold a peculiar ship tagging along on this most curious and sudden of deployments. Shana bumped Wren's shoulder, pointing silently until her captain saw.

Wren shifted the stick, and the Lady dipped left, then right, then left again, and the little shapes in the bays waved in return as the YZ sailed past.

Far in the distance, lines of Imperial vessels already massed opposite them. SENA began counting them through the newly enhanced sensor system, disseminating the information across the entire New Republic taskforce; eight Imperial-II star destroyers, twelve Victory-I and six Victory-II destroyers, a flight of four escort carriers and one Venator-class ship, and a smattering of around 35 tubular Lancer frigates and arrowheaded Vigil-class corvettes. At their center, a Bellator-class battlecruiser, humpbacked much like it's larger cousin, an Assertor-class dreadnought made to a faster and more vicious 7,200 meters.

The console projector came to life as a multi-channel hail came in from the captains of the gathered New Republic capital ships, as well as General Dodonna.

"Long range detection and fighter recon indicate that Admiral Kemin is mirroring the Hasty Lady," Jan stated.

"How are they tracking our movements so accurately from such range?" a Bothan captain mussed from the bridge of the carrier variant MC90.

"We've detected no probe droid or long range fighter launches," Captain Ekmeno of the Conciliator reported; the brand new Nebula-class star destroyer would have had the most sophisticated sensor gear, reaching comparable sensitivity and output to the Hasty Lady, albeit restricted to the more conventional wavelengths.

"Neither have we," Wren confirmed, eyeing SENA for just a moment until he knew that his copilot didn't plan on correcting him.

"It is highly plausable that Admiral Kemin has stealth technologies in the field," the veteran general concluded. "Admiral Kemin very clearly understands the win conditions in this game. Stay sharp as you can, Hasty Lady. The enemy knows that all this hinges on your boarding team, and they will fight accordingly."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Wren muttered, grinning viciously. "We've got a CGT array on here, if we catch anything we'll pass it along."

"Much obliged, Captain Eschlan," Jan said. "But I believe Captain Tulany of the Correlian prowler Third Eye can fill the role; just focus on making it through."

Now the New Republic fighters began spilling out of their hangar bays, massing together in formation like soaring migratory birds. One by one, six twelve-ship squadrons pulled up alongside the Hasty Lady; one of E-wings, one of A-wings, two of X-wings, and two of B-wings. The faces of the squadron leaders sprang from the holoprojector.

"Fine day for a brawl, eh?" One of the pilots quipped, a near-human woman with pronounced carnivorous teeth. The display marked her as Liani Desto, leading Jester Squadron, the flamboyantly violet-trimmed E-wings.

"If you say so, Jester Lead," Wren responded. "Sorry to put you and yours on the line without cause."

"Stow it," the fighter jockey shot back with a laugh. "Combat action and confidentiality pay are the kinds of things that really get us going. We're your posse, Hasty Lady, we'll help clear you a path and keep the Imps from climbing up your backsides."

"Much obliged, Jester. Happy hunting."

Jester lead dipped her wings, and all as one the two masses of staships began bearing down on each other, until finally lances of emerald and crimson energy began to flash from the most far reaching weapons in play. Markers sprang up on the HUD as long range missiles began leaving their racks and tubes. There was no shoving it away onto the console projector; Wren's eyes danced across the screen as he consumed the arranged info.

"Evade!" SENA called out as a new series of alerts sprang across the screen. Wren took the Lady down and rolling left as the Republic pilots scattered.

* * *

"Admiral Tranthra," reported his new first officer. "We are receiving telemetry from Agent Ruvhal. He is feeding us the Hasty Lady's real time approach vector."

"Superb; seems the abominable cut-throat won't sell us out." Denil fidgetted with his new rank placard. His jump from Captain to Rear Admiral had doubled the number of insignia badges and code cylinders on his breast. He drew his breath in to steel himself before issuing his order. "Prepare for long range bombardment."

* * *

The thick volley of turbolaser pulses tore through the corner of space that the Lady just previously occupied. Most of the fighters had managed to dance out off the corridor of fire as well. But those who remained, as well as a Correlian gunboat and a Nebulon-B frigate at the front ranks, were blasted apart, their shields ruined by the dreadnought-scale weapons in short order.

Then the lines began to collide, and the storm erupted in full. Sizzling swaths of red and green, the blue of ion bolts, the flashing colored shapes of missiles trailing exhaust. Every turret on the Hasty Lady worked overtime, presenting a strong front of energy that savaged every howling TIE fighter that dared to challenge the Q-ship, and thanks to the suicidally aggressive Imperial tactics, there were more than plenty. The entourage of New Republic attack craft took potshots from behind this wall of fire, and anything that passed their mad dash through the battlespace with fight left in it was immediately jumped and mauled by the trailing squadrons.

The Hasty Lady dove low under the passing bulk of a Victory-II star destroyer, turned on her side to rake the belly of the destroyer with her dual turbolasers. As B-wings broke away to work the Victory over with their torpedoes and cannons, the Hasty Lady danced past, through a field of turbolasers fire that flashed from the broadside of an Imperial-II. It was then that a seething swarm of TIE fighters pulled out from behind the mainstay Imperial warship and lashed out against the Lady. Their icons flashed up on the HUD. Two standard mixed wings, for a total of 96 TIE Fighters, 24 Interceptors, and 24 bombers. Two squadrons of Scimitar bombers and one of TIE Avengers headed up the swarm.

"Show time." Wren growled, as they plowed into the heart of the enemy.

* * *

A distance a short way from the fighting, shadowy presence lurked, watching. Despite two CGT arrays scanning the area, it lay hidden; gravitic manipulators and a cold plasma shield assisted its hybridium nodes in concealing the presence of the 75 meter sloop. Were it visible in any way, it wouldve appeared a sinister shape in Sienar Fleet Systems grey; a flat wide body with forward mandibles, a shape similar to many light Correlian freighters. It's bridge sat between the mandibles, radiative solar arrays unfolded like insectoid wings from it's drive section, and both light and heavy turrets studded the sloop's surfaces.

Within, Huzo Ruvhal sat at his chair. There was no crew; he alone piloted the vessel. Filling the wide screen was his prey, a glorified freight-puller showing a fully loaded Imperial fighter assault their failings.

With the silent regard of a consummate hunter, Huzo shifted the controls, and moved to attack.


	13. The Maddest Dash

AN: Home stretch folks! Home stretch! Chugging right along, something important to note, the Hasty Lady is at this point wearing the extra rearward launcher, enhanced sensors, and modular armor Fink had briefly mentioned in a previous chapter. The chapter did not clearly state that these enhancements were installed, and this has been fixed as well. Huzo's stealth sloop is heavily inspired by a digital model by Ansel Hsiao. This guy is short, but if I do say so it's absolutely furious. Enjoy!

Chapter 13:

The Maddest Dash

Wren wiped the sweat from his brow as it stung his eyes, and he gasped out a crazed cackle as the HUD scrawled info around the borders of a portal into hell; flashes of radiant color lashed out through the vacuum of space, as an age old song played out in silence across the void and in well-ordered chaos within the hulls of the vessels. War, always evolving, never changing.

Pulling a split-S turn that brought him round behind a fragment of a squadron of TIE/sa, the spacer quickly wiped the sluggish twin hulled bombers off the board. Yet as he did, a fiercer foe began closing in from up high and down low; Interceptors and Scimitar assault bombers, respectively. Wren dipped the Lady down to face the more dangerous craft, attack craft almost as potent as their older cousins but far superior in flight performance. The TIE/in pilots dove gleefully for the Lady's engines, but before they could to more than tickle the YZ's shields they were pulled apart by a foursome of opportunistic A-wings that had concussion missiles to spare.

Laying down a wall of explosives with a pair of cluster missiles, the Hasty Lady boosted around the barrier. Wren cut back on the main throttle and used the thrusters to bring the Lady's tail out; without needing to be told, SENA slaved the quad lasers and dual turbos to Wren's eye tracker, and he struck down the surviving assault bombers with bursts of concentrated firepower. All the while SENA eliminated long trains of ordnance with flickering streams of composite particle rays, before Wren pulled the Lady back in line and made to power away from the scrum. But then their nearest nemesis so far showed their faces again.

Another volley of incoming missiles sprouted icons on the HUD, and many of the new threats were close enough to the Lady's rear angle that SENA had minimal overlapping coverage with the composite beams and AG-2Gs. The electronic intelligence did what she could, striking down some and leading others astray, but the ship rocked with the force of three near misses. The culprits pressed in behind them with well-concentrated cannon fire.

"Fosh, these guys are smart," Wren growled. The TIE Avengers had hidden behind the bulk of a crippled assault frigate as it wandered out of the battlespace, ten of the furious little things diving down through the masking thermal plume of the wrecked interceptors to take the Lady's tail. They had already lost two of their number in the initial fracas when they'd sprang their ambush, and had quickly proved to be the greatest threat.

Somehow, through all the stress and noise, Wren heard Shana release a quiet, half-stiffiled sound. He saw her for a flicker of the eye, genuine fear crossing her face as she flinched and cringed at each destructive flash. Shana's discomfort and relative ignorance of the intricacies of space combat was already an established factor, but outright fear was not something he had seen Shana display. It simultaneously heightened the sense of urgency and distracted Wren with warm protective emotions. The spacer forced himself back into the game, resisting the pull of sentiment that had been getting pilots killed since the dawn of flight itself.

"Fink!" he hollered. "Rearward visibility! When we get back to the nebula, feking fix it!" SENA took the hint and arranged locks for the rearward facing launcher. Another defensive wall of cluster missiles, this one twice as wide, let the Lady turn about while her foes evaded. The elite imperial pilots were unfazed; not one of them fell to the cluster missiles and they danced around the diversion far faster than their comrades. "We may need to try something fancy if we're gonna ditch these psychos. I'd love a good boogie but we just don't have the time."

"Leave it to me," SENA insisted. "Gonna pull a sucker punch."

"Ho boy," Wren said with a grin. He thumped Shana on the arm, excitedly imploring her; "Watch this."

The TIE Avengers angled in, their rapid-fire cannons looking long busts of heavy emerald bolts. Shana's fear increased as the Lady's weapons fell silent.

"Wren. _Shabla_ _di'kut_ , cut it out. _Now._ "

Wren grinned smuggly; "Keep watching, _ner vod._ "

Fink rolled his eyes, and Hakyo chortled, both well familiar with this sort of behavior. Wren only cared enough to rib you if he liked you. And the more he liked you, the bigger the ribbing got; a few hundred units of shield strength was no cost at all. Shana descended into unintelligible Mando'a, wriggling in her chair.

As the range closed, all three of the Lady's launchers discharged, but the exhaust trails cut short and vanished. The hotshot TIEs streaked past and began maneuvering for another run, but they flew face first into a rapidly expanding wall of crippling ions. Those dud missiles had switched to a mine setting, falling still and silent until their targets passed through their linked proximity sensors.

"That's why you always buy the good stuff," Wren gloated, his expression rakish and jubilant.

Shana couldn't help but laugh. She hit him back, harder. " _Di'kut_ ," she chided again, though her face spoke to her elation.

Jester Leader pulled her Series III FreiTek E-wing escort fighter out of it's dive, pulling away from the dying hulk of a Vigil-class corvette, it's command deck and hangar bays belching explosions. Her squadron formed up behind her, whooping and cheering to each other at another starship kill, even if only a small fry. Jester was jubilant to the point of a lapse in professionalism. Despite some close brushes they hadn't yet lost a fighter. Other squadrons hadn't been nearly as lucky. Eyeing her sensor map, she found their charge, once more riding three sublight engines through the mess at breakneck pace.

"Full 'burners folks, we've lost her again," she said over the comms. "And cut the chitchat." Together the swooping warbirds flexed their own muscles and powered ahead until they could see that YZ-775 again, covered in streamlining armor sections that hid the freighter's raw, vulnerable engineering sections and crew spaces under interlocking layers of easily removed and replaced armor modules.

The snubfighters pulled even with the Lady, and Liani couldn't help but mutter a quiet 'damn' as they followed the Hasty Lady in against a cluster of vessels; two more Vigils, a Lancer-class frigate bristling with anti-fighter turrets, and an escort carrier. The starships loosed massed fire into the flock but the Hasty Lady and her companions slipped away. Following on, Liani watched twelve rounds fly from the joints of the YZ's cockpit corridor and main body; the first four trailed bright blue as each one picked a target, dipping around point-defense shots to lock down the four targets under lattices of dancing lightning. Then the crimson flashes of paired proton torpedoes struck true to vital components; fuel cells, command decks, hangar structures and missile magazines. Warheads launched by the escort carrier either detonated under the lady's counterfire or trailed off wayward and confused.

Dancing onward, the Lady did a lazy roll as she passed between the wrecks of four targets which each would have required a concentrated multi-vector torpedo assault for Jester to claim them. And she took them in one pass. To Liani it was a thing of beauty, and she eagerly lead her squadron on as they cleared the rear of the space battle and rocketed off towards the slumbering legion of grey slices of durasteel.

* * *

Huzo considered the vessel carefully. Surely he had not witnessed such worthy prey in years, maybe decades. So wicked an implement, such proficient application, it was exquisite. Sublime prey.

Prey was all Huzo had left. He was old, far older than many of his kind who were feeble and witless, but he had nought but his arms and armor, his ship, and his prey. He had never known a mate. His adopted suns and daughters had labeled him _dar'biur_ back on Mandalore; no longer a father, a moniker of the highest shame given to failed parents. So Huzo hunted. And hunted. And hunted again. Searching for his end of days, however it would come.

The winged guardians, those Republic snubfighters, still flocked about his glorious prize, shepherding her along.

Huzo would amend this, or the old soldier would learn a new lesson. Maybe his last.

* * *

The comms were alive with hoots and howls of joy; always living to their namesake, the Jesters were far beyond even fierce and unrestrained Liani's leash, as much as she was the only one who could possibly control them. And at this point, she wasn't of mind to yank the chain.

"Hasty Lady, that was the maddest dash we've ever taken. You folks have your drinks paid in full, and I think more than a few of us might be feeling more greatful still," the fighter jockey bantered, letting the video feed fill one of her auxuillary displays now that they were out in the clear. She flipped her helmet visor up, revealing her wide eyes to be an odd shade of orange. "Hasty indeed."

"Glad to have you along, Jester Lead," Wren shot back, but before he could elaborate, a new alarm sprang up on the HUD. "But stow that thought, CGT got a reading!"

Leaping green bolts lashed out as the Jesters scattered. They were followed by missiles trailing dark grey, and both Jester 9 and 4 were struck and obliterated by two massive blasts. The culprit cruised across their flight path, a predatory shape half again as long as the Lady and twice as wide, and as the Lady and company pursued, it once again vanished into nothingness.

"Jester Lead, get your people out of here!" Wren barked into his headset, swearing in frustration.

"Like hell, were not gonna let our...-"

"Damn it, just go! Make sure that Third Eye can keep the fleet protected, and we'll buy your dinners on the other side!" Wren and Liani had a single moment of a staredown before the snaggle-toothed near-human nodded once and cut the transmission. Wren turned his mind back to the fight. "Talk to me, SENA. Where is the bastard? And how did we miss him?"

"Port side high; I'm taking flight control," SENA responded. "From the peek I got of them when they were visible, they've got some kind of gravity manipulation system to let their hybridium grid fool the Crystal Grav Trap. It's not active anymore; must drain too much power to use offensively. Only reason they can run that sort of setup at all is because they're almost close to our level of efficiency and they've definitely got us beat on reactor volume."

"Then we can fight them on even ground?" Hakyo questioned, and Shana's hopes sang.

"No dice, this CGT is way too small, too imprecise to handle weapons guidance" SENA said, quashing that hope. "And there's something else going on to boot. Even when they shut off their cloak to power their weapons, I can't get a heat signature. I think they may have a cooling system, a really good one."

"Might be a cold plasma shield," Fink mused, his face stuffed away from the spectacle of the battle into the engineering monitor. Another volley of energy bolts burst against the YZ's shields, punctuated by the more powerful bursts of turbolaser shots. Three pairs of missiles arced in after the Lady, leaping from a row of six tubes on the ventral surface of each of the sloop's forward mandibles. SENA knocked them down with her defensive fire, but the slithering, winding little concussion missiles took an excessive amount of effort to destroy.

"These guys are good," Wren admitted. "Really good."

As their mysterious attacker decloaked to launch another barrage, SENA pulled a tight turn, finally bracketing the vessel visually as it closed in. They traded fire, and as the Lady streaked past, the Sienar sloop deftly maneuvered onto the Lady's rear. The YZ-775 launched a trio of cluster missiles rearward, but the sloop jammed out the simple trackers in the submunitions and slipped through the web. It loosed six more concussion missiles before switching to its mandible launchers; running the inner surface of each mandible was a long rectangular structure, and the rotary magazines within dspensed a pair of longer, heavier projectiles, which shot off on an angle to cut off the arc of the Hasty Lady's turn. SENA worked furiously to counter both missile attacks, but by the time she got to the heavier medicine, the missiles had already broken open, spewing a wide cloud of grey spheres.

The spheres clanged loud, striking the hull and sticking magnetically. Wren eyed on gun camera and swore; "Fekking hell, he hit us with buzz droids! Fink, go get the astromechs fitted with combat harnesses!"

"Thanks Fink, it should take them a while to get through your new armor!" The mechanic sarcassed over his shoulder. "Really not that hard!"

Shana stared up into the bulkhead, trying to control her emotions. The feeling of helplessness was almost overwhelming; an enemy she could do nothing about was a frustration beyond unsettling.

"Hey," Wren said, resting a hand on his new comrade's shoulderplate. "We've got this."

Shana held the hand he'd given her there for a moment before he retracted it. With a deep breath she steeled herself, and like a good jet trooper, entrusted her life into the hands of her pilot.

* * *

Admiral Kemin strode down the ramp of her Sentinel-class lander as her stormtroopers fanned out to secure the cavernous hangar bay. It was startlingly silent save for the clatter of their own boots. She felt her purpose singing through her veins as they boarded a tramline up through the spinal fortress and into the command tower. There at the end of the walkway between the dual crew pits was the command console. Embedded there was a glowing canister of fiery, incandescent light. Uyoroi strode forward with a catch in her throat.

"ISCA. Can you hear me?"

The voice came after a long moment of silence, thick and reverberating. "Yes, Admiral Kemin," it said.

More silence; it took the Admiral a moment longer to recover. "Bring the fleet to combat readiness," she demanded.

"I cannot," came the booming reply.

"What?" The admiral developed lines of stress on her brow and clenched her jaw. "Why not?"

"I cannot tell you," the war computer insisted.

" _Why_? Damn you, why?!" The admiral was in tears again; her subordinates silent and dispassionate behind their helmets. "Don't you remember me? I saved your life!"

"I cannot tell you," it repeated. "And I do... But I cannot."

"I... I don't understand. How...?" Uyoroi scanned the console; just a microphone, and the unit. And then she remembered her last conversation with Sheev Palpatine.

* * *

The wine glass fell to the floor, shattering and spilling it's ruby red contents across the smooth stone floors.

"Y-you can't!" She cried out. "I mean, your Imperiality... I have slaved over this project for years. After your death I maintained it, I pledged it to you again when you returned, I relocated my family to better serve the project..."

"And now you have completed it for me," the rejuvenated emperor said simply, calmly smiling and paying the breech of ettiquet no mind as he sipped from his own chalice. "Your reward will be most generous up on the cessation of hostilities. But your Emperor has need of your skills elsewhere."

* * *

"The bastard promised me I would help him defend the galaxy," Uyoroi sobbed. "I gave him years of my life, let those doctors perpetrate endless horrors, and when I was done he snatched it away, and sent us all off to spill our blood for him too. And then he made it his."

There was no doubt in Uyoroi's mind that ISCA could only obey an authenticated command from Sheev Palpatine himself. The system was probably scanning them biometrically as well.

"Assemble your best slicers," she ordered her Stormtroopers. "Make this damn thing obey. The rest of you, with me! If Agent Ruvhal has not bested the scum then they'll be on our doorstep soon enough."

They traveled back to the hangar bays, into the depths of the support facilities which housed and serviced the contained compliment of craft, clustered in the decks surrounding the bays. When they finally arrived at the proper storage unit, Uyoroi's rage had been stirred to it's highest zenith. The door slid open, and the lights came on row by row to reveal the prize.

Squad by squad, platoon and company, their dark grey plate gleaming with brand new luster. Phase 2 darktroopers. The only provisions for live sentient warriors in the entire setup.

"One for you, ma'am," said one of her subordinate officers. He pointed high up into the chamber; suspended there amid gantries and walkways was something more menacing. It's surfaces were deeply blued, it's armaments overbuilt.

Uyoroi watched the thing apprehensively as she ascended to it, as though it would come to life and end this deathwish bid for vengeance once and for all. But once she stared the thing in the face, her resolve was firm. Like a flower it opened to accept her.

"Let's go, ladies and gentlemen," she declared, her voice now filtered and amplified. "We don't want the rabble to evade our hospitality."


	14. Wearing Their Colors

AN: One step closer, y'all. Enjoy.

* * *

Chapter 14: Wearing Their Colors

"We're gonna die. _Vika'biur_ , please, _hukaat'kama_ , get me out of this _dar'yaim_..."

Shana was certain of it now. A dozen different alarms filled the cockpit with noise. The ship rocked and pitched as another series of blasts triggered a short distance off.

"Oh ye of little faith," Wren sarcased, though he still winced as a blue exhaust trailing gray arced out of the darkness. The starboard quad laser tracked swiftly and riddled the weighty projectile, and Wren shifted the Lady out of the tremendous blast radius. It was then that Fink burst back into the cockpit.

"Astromechs are fitted and ready to space," the youth reported. "But I think we can add a hull-contact countermeasure to the drawing board."

"We can worry about it when we're done with this dirty bastard and his diamond-boron missiles," Wren shot back. "How's our armor integrity?"

"Between the pistodekas and the rough love from the missile attacks, we're down to 47.5 percent of the modular ablative components. They seem to have realized they're not going to be reaching anything important for a while, because they've taken to trying to compromise as many armor sections as possible." Fink got right back into the Lady's performance data. "I'm spacing the astromechs now."

At the Lady's waist, between the crew and engineering sections, one of the YZ's two airlocks slid open, and a file of three astromechs droids quickly passed through. Sticking magnetically to the hull of the ship, each wore a ring-like harness around it's shoulders. Bronzed, flat-topped R6-A9. Chrome-detailed, dome-headed R2-E7. And richly blued R3-C3.

The skittering forms of the buzz droids quickly closed in from all sides, their drills and saws working eagerly in anticipation. The pistodekas charged, and all at once a spray of red bolts shot from the three astromechs droids. Each combat harness boasted four turreted blaster pistols; little things, but more than enough blaster to send the buzz droids sliding off the sides of the Lady with smoking holes in them.

* * *

Huzo was practically gushing as he slid into another attack vector, watching his optical sensors as modified astromechs rolled across the freighter's hull and exterminated his saboteur droids before retreating back into the shelter of their starship.

"So crafty," he muttered. "You've got an answer for everything, don't you?" Huzo took a moments hesitation before launching his attack. His ship slipped into the visible and released a spray of green blaster pulses from his sloop's forward guns. The four quad laser turrets and the dorsal and ventral dual turbolasers battered the YZ-775's shields. It bucked and twisted but Huzo followed close, its six solar-radiator wings flexing as their thruster arrays shifted the sloop along with its target. Huzo muttered to himself. "You don't like that, eh? Your hull isn't built for combat visibility. You know it isn't, but you haven't quite figured out how to overcome."

Yet even as Huzo said this, payloads launched against his pursuit. Three fields of cluster missiles covered his upper arc, forcing him to dodge downwards. When his vision cleared of the blossoming explosions, there was his erstwhile prey, doubed back around and closing with blistering speed. Huzo tried to reactivate his hybridium grid, but his power management console spat back a refusal. Then, to his surprise, passive sensor warnings belated that Huzo was being directly targeted. "How...-?"

As the barrage came slamming home, Huzo figured the trick; his cold plasma shield operated by masking the ship's thermal emissions against the cold background of space. But when he dipped past the defensive screen of cluster missiles, he'd silhouetted his cold hull against the hot gasses of their detonations. And the YZ was perfectly positioned to capitalize.

The concentrated salvoes of cannon fire converged on the sloop with ruthless accuracy, smashing down Huzo's shield meter and completely shredding his cold plasma shield, rendering him fully visible on the full sensor spectrum. Then the missiles came sizzling in, and his quad lasers struggled to hold back the spread of proton torpedoes that rocked the sloop with their force and proximity. Tricks on top of tricks, four devilish little mass driver shots sped through the dissipating blast plumes of the proton warheads.

Huzo twisted his vessel. His cannons spat emerald counterfire. But two of the shells got through, punching a pair of holes into his drive compartment. Immediately his power management console began shouting warnings at him. "Reactor cluster breached," it concluded it a distorted, mechanical voice. "R4 damaged and offline; remaining reactor nodes compensating at 74 percent efficiency."

Huzo growled in frustration. This engagement was rapidly becoming unsustainable, and despite Huzo's earnest desire to find a warrior he couldn't best, it was a mark of deficiency for a warrior to die with a weapon left undrawn. And there were other adjacent fields for this fight to play out upon. Huzo pulled away, boosting off as the Hasty Lady rocketed past. As soon as it was possible, he triggered his hybridium grid, dropping into relative safety.

The fleet docking complex loomed slowly, kilometer by kilometer.

* * *

As soon as the phantom assaults had ceased and the deadly sloop's CGT signature had pulled away, the cockpit erupted into cheers of relief; Shana's peals of hysterical joy, Fink and SENA with their smug chuckles, punctuated by Hakyo's victory roar and the small flick of Wren putting the lighter to his cigarra, before Shana shot up and pulled him into a tight embrace that Wren would've found lovely, had it not been broken up by Shana's hard beskar breastplate.

"Your _Vika'biur_ came through," Wren said with a laugh when Shana released him. The look on Shana's face, the way she smiled with her eyes as much as her lips, made Wren's own face flush.

"She always does," Shana said reverently. "You'll need to meet her some time." Wren sat speechless, and before Shana elaborate or Wren could catch his breath, the comms crackled.

"That was quite the show, Hasty Lady. I dont think anybody here is ever going to forget this one." Captain Ekmeno's grizzled middle aged portrait hung suspended in light springing from the dashboard projector, and he had an amused grin on his steely visage.

"I concur," said a woman with narrow eyes and closely bobbed dark hair. It gave Wren an amused twinge of surprise to see her IDed as captain of the assault frigate Voidwatcher. "You guys left us quite the mess over Naruku III, Hasty Lady. But after watching that I would call us even."

"Much obliged," Wren ground out, trying to shield his headset microphone from the riotous laughter filling the cockpit, before yet another head sprung up on the holoprojector.

"We brought in the cavalry, Captain Eschlan!" It was Liani Desto and her Jesters. "We'll make sure that shifty devil can't jerk you around any longer."

The cluster of New Republic ships, having fought their ways into position, broke away from the space battle as one, powering out of the melee and towards the docking complex; the huge protective bulk of the Conciliator, the monolithic body and skeletal frame of the Voidwatcher, the flowing tan form of the MC80B cruiser Confluence, several smaller supporting vessels, and the adjoining screens of fighter craft. The Lady came about and pulled in next to the Correlian prowler Third Eye, a darkly painted and heavily streamlined CR92 Assassin-class corvette, the classic CR-90's updated sibling. Third Eye's captain, Eseril Tulany, sprang up on the dashboard.

"Glad to see you're still with us," Eseril said, and it surprised the crew of the Hasty Lady to see a boy younger than even Fink on the other side of the comm system. "The enemy stealth ship has retreated to the docking complex. Our boarding parties are prepping now."

"Thanks Captain Tulany," Wren responded, perhaps judt a touch more curt than he could've been. He was simply glad to be done with the conference call. "SNEA, take the stick. Let's get dangerous, folks."

The four humanoid members of the crew stood and moved into the adjoining pilot's lounge, where their gear and armaments waited. They strapped themselves down, and then headed down below where their cargo of NRSF operators waited. All eyes in the cargo hold flashed to the four.

"Who's flying the ship?" Came one sly remark, and the whole host took a round of laughter.

"She can guide herself to a spell," Wren responded with an easy calm, no stranger to the jousting of hotshot soldiers. "Hope the ride wasn't too bumpy."

The soldiers decended into motley jests as one man stepped forward, slipping off his helmet and pulling back his balaclava. "Koda Flareley. Sorry about the boys, they're just ruffling any feathers they can."

Wren scoffed, waving his other hand dismissively as he took Koda's handshake firmly. "Reminds me of old friends," the spacer said with a grin. "We'll be hitting the deck together."

"Damn straight," Koda responded. "Let us take the Imps, Captain Eschlan. We've all been briefed, its our pleasure to be your battering ram."

"I seem to be owing people drinks left and right today," Wren joked.

"That's just how these things go," Koda said. "Listen up people! We all stay sharp, we all come home to collect!"

There was no real doubt in the cargo hold that this was anything but a bold faced lie. But the intent behind it sung true regardless. Each and every one of them burned with a desire to see then other side of this struggle.

Launching from the assembled capital vessels that had managed to break away, the avian forms of Old Republic Nu-class attack shuttles pulled up alongside the Hasty Lady. The old birds still soared in pace as fighter squadrons pulled in to solidify the spearpoint.

Ahead, a final cluster of imperial vessels spread out between them and ISCA's home; Sentinel-class landers and Delta-class escort shuttles, both built of shades of the iconic Lambda-class imperial shuttle. The Sentinels boasted significant arsenals of eight defensive cannons, paired forward repeating blasters, paired concussion missile launchers, and an ion cannon each as well. The smaller and swifter escort shuttles wore three forward heavy laser cannons, a pair of missile launchers, and a pair of rear-facing turbolasers. All the while, a stream of Imperial forces undertook a mad chase to catch them with New Republic elements gnawing at their heels.

The sides collided and despite their heavy punch the Imperial assault craft fared poorly without fighter support. The Jesters and the Lady leading the way, the assault ships sliced through and rocketed up to the docking complex. It was a moment of quiet fear as they passed between the sleeping bulks of the docked vessels; each soul knew that these still behemoths could come alive at any moment, but the tension passed for a new one as the assault force dipped down and angled up towards the dreadnought's hangar bays.

"Go time, people," SENA said, her voice spreading through the crowded hold. The entire host stood, weapons at the ready. "Ramp down in ten... Nine..."

The Hasty Lady slid through the magcon field, and into a wash of firepower. All across the cavernous hangar bay, entrenched Imperial Stormtroopers sent a storm of scarlet shots to ripple the Lady's shields. Pilotless, the vessel obeyed SENA's commands, and the cannons swung back, chewing through the blank armored forms. The assault shuttles followed, and soon the huge bay, kilometres long, was filled with New Republic ships. One by one, the attacking forces set down amid covered positions to release their passengers.

The Hasty Lady dropped her cargo elevator, and the fighting men and women of the New Republic Special Forces charged ahead into the cluster of cargo crates to take up firing positions, and the battle erupted in earnest. On one side, the white plastoid, silent coordination, and unflinching aggression of The Stormtrooper Corps. On the other, the NRSF; low tech by comparison, fighting by eye and voice, but with hard-earned skill, vicious cunning, and emotional force of bond. The exchange was furious beyond measure, as each side directed its entire panoply of war against the other. The Imperials lashed out from prepared positions with heavy repeating blasters. The New Republic soldiers struck back with ordnance, grenades and missiles. Shuttles that had delivered their cargoes took to the air, cruising about the hangar to attack the Stormtroopers with their cannons.

They dropped to the durasteel elevator, four sets of boots moving as one, while NRSF operators continued to pour from the Lady's 400 ton cargo hold. Shana, her eyes bathing in tactical info through her helmet HUD, motioned left, and sure enough there was Koda. He directed his comrades as they approached, reading off the strategic pad on his wrist to a missile team. The crew stepped clear of the backblast as the soldiers launched a high-test round into an E-WEB replacement high on the wall of the hangar bay.

"Hot damn!" Koda slapped the missilewoman on the shoulder plate, before turning to face the four. "Wasn't that just pretty?"

"Lovely, Koda," Shana commended. They sheltered behind cover together.

"It's Lieutenant Colonel out on the battlefield," he joked. "We're working on an exit route as we speak, but it's gonna take a little work before we can get moving; these guys have been setting this pudu up for a while, damn sure. Any preference in direction?"

"Our best bet is one of the tertiary personnel lines, their constructions are the most difficult to fortify and they should fit 50 at a time," SENA explained, coming through Kalom's communicator as well. "There's an access complex on our two o'clock."

"On it," Lt. Colonel Flareley said simply, pressing his fingers to his earpiece. The NRSF operators shifted their orientation, and slowly the disseparate pockets of NRSF began to coalesce into a unified front with secured flanks and rear. Much more free to maneuver within their side of the hangar bay, Colonel Flareley's forces began pushing for their objective. And as the Nu-class attack shuttles began coordinated attack runs, the Hasty Lady lifted under SENA's direction to join them. Colonel Flareley let out an awestruck; "Force."

Streams of automatic fire stitched across the imperial positions, spraying from the YZ's nose and flanks. Thick packets of energy leapt from her dorsal and ventral guns, blasting apart clustered Stormtroopers and their stationary armaments. Her composite beams tracked molten lines across the floors, walls, and ceilings, mowing down ranks of Imperial soldiers. The attack shuttles loosed their own blue salvoes, sending smoking white plastoid shade spiraling through the air.

"Oyaaa!" Shana bellowed, popping up to loose powerful bolts from her DC-15A. The rest of the crew followed suit, and before long they were leaping up from their positions.

"Push in!" Koda called over the comms, and the NRSF charged into a close assault.

"Form behind me!" Hakyo bellowed, pairing his translator droid to the crew's comm net. He marched up in front with his ACP cannon blazing, and roared in pain and rage as bolts began to sear his thick hide. Shana sprinted up to match his long-legged gait, spraying down enemy positions up on the catwalks with her wrist blaster. Hakyo regarded her with an expression Shana now recognized as pleased. "You think you can play my game, little Mandalorian?"

Shana scoffed over the comms, but Wren could tell she was grinning ear to ear, somehow. "Please, brute! You didn't invent the bar'hukaatkir!" Like fate, a string of potshots came streaking past, and one took Shana in the breastplate, sparing Hakyo's gut. Shana coughed out, her voice still full of mirth; "Body cover!"

Shana staggered a touch, but there was just a scorch on the thick beskar, and she marched onward. Slipping a projectile with a green tip into his S-5, Wren aimed over Shana's shoulder. The projectile spiraled off through the air before homing in on Wren's shifting aim. With the point of his pistol Wren guided the round until it burst upon the offending Stormtrooper's armor. "Hands off," he muttered.

Eventually they made the corridor, taking cover in its alcove. With an invisible signal, SENA bid the door open, and in they spilled. There were stormtroopers here, but they were fewer and unprepared. Wren and Fink, first inside, gunned them down; Wren's emerald blaster shots punched smoking holes while Fink's alloy spheres drew blood as they tore through their targets. Shana and Hakyo picked up the sides, and then the NRSF came rushing through behind them, quickly seizing control of the transit complex.

"This is where we part ways," Colonel Flareley said, extending his gloved had to each of the Hasty Lady crew in turn. "I need to stay here, keep managing the hangar bay operations. Give them hell up there."

Wren, Shana, Fink, and Hakyo, along with as many NRSF operators as could fit, boarded the single tram of the tertiary complex. The tram sped away, deeper into the bowels of the gargantuan warship. As it wound its way through the structure of the dreadnought, the assembled forces took a moment to rest and prepare. Blaster packs were changed, wounds patched and sealed, and the soldiers went around checking on their comrades. Seeing who had made it. And who hadn't. It forced Wren to push off the wall; slowly, carefully, he picked his way about the tram. One by one, he introduced himself to each of them, and offered heartfelt thanks for their assistance. Sighting this, Shana nudged Hakyo and Fink, and together, the four of them made rounds as the tram took an incline upwards.

It was a powerful experience. At first it was a quiet thing, one person at a time, careful not to interrupt comrades no matter what they spoke of. But the special forces operatives quickly realized as the four moved from one side of the tram to the other, and by the end they all stood, waiting to greet their strange allies. Their eyes, voices and faces broadcast their emotions. By the end, Wren could hear Shana sniffle under her helmet, and even Fink and Hakyo had somber airs about them.

"We're almost there," SENA said softly into Wren's earpiece. Wren circulated the information, and the feels of unity and togetherness were gone for the cold rigor of the fight.

The darkness of the transit tunnel gave way to a lit chamber, the command tower primary transit complex. Across the chamber, up three levels of stairs and tram platforms, the access corridor to the command tower. The operatives clung as best they could to the cover of the tram, and when they spilled out into the station, hell broke loose yet again.

From up the stairs, on the other platforms, from every corner and wall, thick streams of plasma bolts cut the air and splattered burning plasma across the NRSF as they dove for what positions they could find. Those who were unable to leave the tram quickly perished as its thin walls were reduced to a melting mess. Missiles arced from the enemy positions, sending bodies tumbling.

The four fought like hell, but despite their highest efforts every other blink witnessed the fall of one of their new friends. Eventually, a woman with blood soaking her armor dove into the crew's position.

"This isn't gonna happen like this!" She shouted. "We're all gonna have to run for it!"

Wren couldn't contain his disgust at the idea. "We'll never make it!"

"We're all gonna die anyways if we don't!" The operative responded. The look on her face spoke to the grim proposition. "And a whole lot more are gonna follow, unless we can get you four up into that bridge tower!"

Wren had to fight back tears. "We can't leave you behind!" He said. His gumption failed him, salty drops flowing.

The woman laughed, shaking her head. She reached for her neck, ripping away a pair of durasteel tags. She grabbed Eren's wrist and forced them into his hand. "We'll be right there with you," she insisted. "All of us, every step of the way. Now, get ready!"

They gathered together. They laid down suppressive fire, hurled smoke grenades, and then hopped up into the charge and died in droves. One by one, step by step, shot by shot. Before they reached the top of the third staircase, every one of the NRSF operatives was dead.

Launching from their positions across the transit complex, dark grey forms boosted through the air. They landed with resounding impacts, and aimed their weapons threateningly. The crew of the Hasty Lady were rapidly surrounded, until finally a larger enemy came striding out of the access corridor, the lanky form of a black and gold armored Mandalorian following, his right arm resting easily on the hilt of a long two-handed sword. The crew begrudgingly cast down their arms.

"Bravo!" She called. Her gauntlets clashed together in the approximation of a clap, her helmet retracted to reveal her face, which shown with mirth and rage in equal amounts. "That was an outstanding performance. Truly a heroic sacrifice." Admiral Kemin eyed her comrades, before the helmet snapped shut. She demanded, her voice dripping with electronic malice. "Bring them!"

* * *

They stood stock still, staring down the barrels of a dozen assault cannons.

"To be honest, I've long wanted to speak to you, Captain Eschlan," Uyoroi said. "I was very curious to see what sort of man could survive an engagement that doomed so many others."

"I don't know who you think you're trying to chat with," Wren said bluntly. "Unless you plan on detailing your plan to space yourself, I'm not interested. Sell it to somebody who gives a fosh, you fourth rate wanna-be empress."

Uyoroi emitted a sound that Wren slowly translated as a scoff. "Such righteous indignation," she cooed with dripping sarcasm. "Such fury. For those who killed your comrades? Because you know that the bodies are down below, yes? Dear Wren, these sniveling weaklings have misdirected your ire."

Wren made a half turn, and so vicious was the movement that the darktroopers surrounding them inched their assault cannons closer. "You're talking about something that started before I was even born. Probably started when my dad survived the clone wars and signed up to settle Byss for Palpatine. So don't you dare try to tell me who my enemies are; I've been living under them my entire life. They took everything that should been good in my life and twisted it into something I had to learn to loathe, and then turned it into an ashpile that I couldn't even mourn. And you're wearing their colors."

Wren couldn't see Uyoroi's scowl as the elevator reached it's zenith, and the exoskeleton-clad Stormtroopers forced them out; even Hakyo, unflinching to his growls and threat displays. "Separate him," Uyoroi ordered, and the iron grips seized Wren and yanked him away from his comrades.

"Leave him alone!" Shana demanded, and it amuzed Uyoroi to ignore her outburst.

"Dear Wren," Admiral Kemin continued. "You clearly didn't hear, so allow me to burst your bubble; it was a Rebel droid that fired the Galaxy Gun on Byss. Rebel droid, Rebel war, Rebel Kraut Dragons, Rebel friends. Its a shame; I would considered offering you survival for your services, before you insulted me so."

"I'd do it all over again," Wren said with a sly grin, as he was forced around at Uyoroi's command. But when the door slid open and he was shoved inside, that grin disappeared. The troopers reached for SENA, and despite his best efforts, Wren couldn't stop them.

"No!" Shana cried. "Let him go! _Gar'chak, kyr'am'alor_! You let him go!" The door slid shut, and Wren pressed against the transparisteel porthole. Shana tore away from the Darktroopers, finding some way to escape their power-assisted grasps as she rushed over. Palm pressed to palm, only the window between them. Shana couldn't keep from sobbing, quiet as she realized none of his words could pass through to her; "Please..."

With a vicious grin, Uyoroi slammed the wall control, and the airlock launched Wren into the cold grip of space.


End file.
